August 25, 2015

Updates to the sources.debian.net editor

Debconf is a great opportunity to meet people in real life, to express and share ideas in a different way, and to work on all sort of stuff.

I therefore spent some time to finish a couple of features in the editor for sources.debian.net. Here are some of the changes:

  • Compare the source file with that of another version of the package
  • And in order to present that: tabs! editor tabs!
  • at the same time: generated diffs are now presented in a new editor tab, from where you can download it or email it


Get it for chromium, and iceweasel.

If your browser performs automatic updates of the extensions (the default), you should soon be upgraded to version 0.1.0 or later, bringing all those changes to your browser.

Want to see more? multi-file editing? in-browser storage of the editing session? that and more can be done, so feel free to join me and contribute to the Debian sources online editor!

August 20, 2015

Call for release goal: package reconsideration

Based on a discussion around breakfast, and encouraged by the people at the table, I hereby call for a new release goal (or challenge, whatever you prefer to call it):


Every package maintainer should remove one of their packages from the archive.


It's dead simple. It is acceptable to adopt a package to replace the one that has been removed, or to add a new one to the archive.
For tracking purposes please include "for RG" (release goal) in the removal request to ftp.debian.org.


And how about a debconf challenge? how about filing over 100 removal requests before the end of Debconf 15 on Saturday night? blog about it, dent/twit about it, spam IRC about it!


The idea came up after discussing about how us as package maintainers refuse to remove our obsolete or unused packages. So yes, that may also include the very first package that you got into the archive.


Sad news, good news.