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 * [wiki:/Misc Misc]: dbconfig, debconf, planet, ...  * [wiki:/Misc Misc]: dbconfig-common, debconf, planet, ...

Introduction

As many of you know, I am conducting research on Debian, specifically on how Debian developers adopt or reject new methods of package maintenance. I would like to get a broad collection of data for the first part of my research, which is the study of tools that have been successfully adopted or which have been rejected (so to speak) by the developer crowd.

While I already have a good selection, I am on the look for more. Do you know of a good example of a tool that has successfully shaped Debian development for a large number of people? Or do you remember a tool that tried but horribly failed? Those are much harder to find. :)

I will be blogging about recent developments some time soon, specifically about the change in direction of my research, so watch [http://blog.madduck.net/phd this space] or just read [http://planet.debian.org the planet] if you are interested.

The tools

What comes to mind when you think about these tools (feel free to add new ones).

  • Have they been widely adopted?
  • What may be reasons for this wide adoption?
  • If they haven't been widely adopted, can you think why?


At Stefano's suggestion, I am categorising the tools:

  • [wiki:/PackagingHelpers Packaging helpers]: debhelper, cdbs, pbuilder, sbuild, ...

  • [wiki:/GeneralHelpers General development helpers]: devscripts, ...

  • [wiki:/BugTracking Bug tracking]: debbugs, reportbug, CIA, user tags, ...

  • [wiki:/Collaboration Collaboration]: alioth, *-buildpackage, ...
  • [wiki:/PatchManagement Patch management]: dpatch, quilt, dbs, ...

  • [wiki:/PackageCheckers Package checkers]: lintian, linda, piuparts, ...

  • [wiki:/APTArchiveManagement APT archive management]: debarchiver, apt-ftparchive, mini-dinstall, ...
  • [wiki:/Misc Misc]: dbconfig-common, debconf, planet, ...

Notes from the emails

This is stuff I need to process at one point...


Bart Martens: I believe that these sources of knowledge about such development tools influenced me to accept or reject the tools, in descending order of importance to me.

  • - new maintainers guide, very strong influence (debhelper, lintian) - tools used by the sponsor (pbuilder, piuparts, linda, ...) - reference guide and policy guide

Suggestions to use group maintenance tools, like "please coordinate with the Debian Perl Team if you want to adopt this package" or "you might want to consider joining the debian-ocaml-maint team and use our svn repository" don't convince me and feel like a waste of time, although I know that people really mean well.