Sponsorship

The sponsorship process is designed to allow prospective developers to have packages reviewed and uploaded. The review and uploading is performed by a Ubuntu Developer (MOTU) or Ubuntu Core Developer (core-dev). Sponsorship provides a means of learning about Ubuntu development and lowers the entry barrier for contribution.

The process outlined here is aimed at dealing with incremental changes to existing packages within Ubuntu. For mentoring on the creation of entirely new packages, please see the MOTU/Packages/REVU process.

Requesting Sponsorship

• File an Ubuntu bug in Launchpad or follow up on an existing one and

• attach your work

  • in the case of a patch (using the same upstream version), attach your suggested patch (Howto Debdiff)

  • if the package uses a patch system, then make sure to follow the patch tagging guidelines

  • in the case of a upstream version update (Howto Package Update) attach the .diff.gz file (and link to the new upstream source if necessary)

• subscribe ubuntu-main-sponsors or ubuntu-universe-sponsors as appropriate (details below) and request sponsorship

New Packages

The process for getting NEW packages (packages which are not in Ubuntu at all yet) reviewed is explained at UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages.

Sponsoring

Sponsorship is organized by two teams:

• https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-main-sponsors

• https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-universe-sponsors

Do not assign a bug to anyone if it needs sponsorship.

Any Ubuntu developer who is interested in acting as a sponsor is welcome to apply for membership in the appropriate team.

You can see the currently pending requests at:

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.subscriber=ubuntu-main-sponsors

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.subscriber=ubuntu-universe-sponsors

Or combined at:

• http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/sponsoring/

The ubuntu-main-sponsors team handles sponsorship of packages in the main and restricted components; the ubuntu-universe-sponsors team handles sponsorship of packages in the universe and multiverse components. To find out which component a source package is in, visit https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/SOURCE-PACKAGE-NAME and look at the row for the appropriate release in the "Published versions and upstream associations" table. The component name is in the third column.

Workflow for Review and Sponsorship

If you are processing the universe sponsorship queue, please review the Procedure Documentation or UbuntuDevelopment/CodeReviews

Check the patch over carefully. If there are problems with it, provide constructive feedback to the bug so that it can be revised.

A useful checklist for sponsoring may be found on Matt Palmers sponsorship checklist : http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/sponsorship_checklist.html, though it is neither authoritative nor exhaustive. Exercise your own judgement when reviewing the package. A good review is non-trivial, but you will be responsible for what is uploaded, so be thorough.

To upload, do a source only build of the package as normal, but make sure that your name is not in the Maintainer: or Changed-By: headers of the changes file. The easiest way to do this is to use the -k option to dpkg-buildpackage or debsign to sign it with your key (but leave it otherwise unchanged). Do not use the -m or -e flags to dpkg-buildpackage!

To find changes for main that need sponsoring, see the list of bugs:

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.subscriber=ubuntu-main-sponsors

or

• http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/sponsoring/

When you start to work on such a bug, assign it to yourself. (If you find a bug on the list above already assigned to someone other than a member of ubuntu-core-dev, that is a mistake. You should probably deassign them and point them at this wiki page.)

When you have a solution, i. e. an updated source package which fixes the problem, create a debdiff to the current Ubuntu version and attach it to the bug (don't forget to set the "patch" flag for the attachment).

When you have finished working on the bug by uploading, set the state to Fix Released as usual, and unsubscribe ubuntu-main-sponsors.

If the bug is a sync request, you can finish it by approving the sync. Edit the Description if necessary so that it is a proper sync request. Write a comment into the bug saying that you approve the sync, and subscribe ubuntu-archive. You should unsubscribe ubuntu-main-sponsors at this point. Leave the bug assigned to yourself in case ubuntu-archive have any questions.

You will need to be a member of ubuntu-main-sponsors in order to unsubscribe the team from the bug.

CategoryProcess