This page documents the current workflow used to draft, edit and send out issues of the [:ProjectNews:Debian Project News].
Please note, that the following states only the ideal workflow. Because of some constraints of the editors or due to expected events (e.g. when one ftp-master ask the issue to be delayed for a couple of hours, so the mail he is about to send out can be mentioned in the issue) the following timeline might be stretched.
Please also note, that this workflow is just what we currently use - we are well aware that it isn't perfect, but we currently don't have the time for any drastic changes.
Current workflow
(As practised more or less by Meike and Alexander.)
- After an issue has been sent out, the wiki page is "cleaned up".
- [:ProjectNews/Issues/Current:] is renamed to the proper name (ProjectNews/Issues/$year/$number).
- [:ProjectNews/Issues:] is updated.
- Add the just released issue with its topics.
- Calculate date for the next issue (14 days later).
A new issue is created at [:ProjectNews/Issues/Current:] based on the template at ?ProjectNewsTemplate.
For the next ~10 days, stuff is added to the TODO of the current [:ProjectNews/Issues/Current:draft] and the according texts are written.
- Interesting blog posts are added.
- Links to interesting discussion on one of our mailing lists are added.
- If a security advisory is released, we consider adding it, roughly based on importance of package and guessed number of installations.
- On the weekend before the Monday the issue is to be released, the still remaining texts are written.
- If a text isn't long enough, they are moved to the "other news" section.
- When we are done, we add the numbers to the WNPP paragraph.
- Since we are not the only group within Debian showing activity during weekends, we might need to add a lot of stuff, which hasn't been on the todo-list, yet.
Theoretical it's now Sunday evening; and we ask on the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/ debian-l10n-english] list for reviewers. (Practically we reach this point often just on Monday evening and try to catch some native English speakers via IRC.)
At the same time, the current draft is added to the [http://alioth.debian.org/projects/dwn-trans/ DWN translation project] to give them more time translating the news. (Again, we often skip that point, since we reach it too late.)
- After the issue has been reviewed it is transferred to wml, which is used for Debian's website. That roughly means:
- Copying the last issue to a new file name and cleaning it up
Copy pasting the [http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/Issues/Current?action=raw raw output] of the current draft into the new file
Replacing /^= /<strong><p>/
Replacing / =$/<\/strong><\/p>/
Replacing /[/<a href="/
Replacing /]/<\/a>/
Manually fixing links, adding <p> and </p> to the paragraphs; fixing quotation marks / replacing them with <q> and </q> where that's the proper form
The "new and noteworthy packages" are a manual selection from the list produced by a script (newpkgs parsing http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg
- At this point we most likely have a valid wml file; we test the build in an CVS checkout of Debian's website
- Then we test the links, look for broken HTML etc.
- If everything works well, the wml file is committed to CVS and the CURRENT-ISSUE-IS pointer is adjusted
- Now we use makemail.pl to generate a text version of the issue
- For some weird reason links get lost during that process when Alex uses the script
- So he re-adds all the links into the text version
When that is done, the text version is send to the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-news debian-news] mailing list
Problems with the current workflow
- Translators should get the wml-version at the same time as native English speakers start to review, but for reviewers it is easiest to just work with the wiki-version. (And Alexander is to lazy to generate the wml twice from the wiki.)
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/newpkg only lists packages for the last seven days, while the DPN are send out every 14 days
- Note that while the missing information is not exposed, it is available. Patches to expose it (e.g. by adding an additional
parameter) are welcome. Pointers on where to start on request -- ?FrankLichtenheld
Will do so, as my time permits; for now solved with 00 12 * * 1 /home/alex/bin/newpkgs |sed -e "s/ ([1-7] days old)//" | mail -s "New package report" alexander@schmehl.info in my crontab
- ...
See also:
- [:ProjectNews/Todo:]
- [:ProjectNews/Guidelines:]