Ubuntu Wiki

Sponsorship

The sponsorship process is designed to allow prospective developers to have packages reviewed and uploaded. The review and uploading is performed by an official developer. 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.

Creating a request

MartinPitt wrote a little python script that reads a debdiff from stdin or a file, creates a bug report, and assigns it to the appropriate team:

• http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/scripts/requestsponsor

This can only be used to diff changes to existing packages; if its a new package, the package should go through the [:MOTU/Packages/REVU] process.

[Martin reports that this script needs some improvement, as it is a bit out of date (July 25, 2007).]

Requirements:

• You need a deb-src line for the release you upload to (and must be up-to-apt-get-update, of course).
• The environment variable DEBEMAIL must be set.
• The script currently needs a local MTA.

With this script, creating a request is as easy as:

  debdiff cupsys_1.2.1-0ubuntu1.dsc cupsys_1.2.1-0ubuntu2.dsc > diff
  [review diff]
  requestsponsor diff

The script will ask you for your GPG passphrase to sign the bug report. It automatically uses gnome-gpg if it is installed.

You can see the currently pending requests at:

• https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-main-sponsors/+subscribedbugs

• https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-universe-sponsors/+subscribedbugs

Or combined at:

• http://daniel.holba.ch/sponsoring/

Do not assign a bug to anyone if it needs sponsorship. (See Workflow, below.)

Alternative approach using ppaput

Prerequisites

1. Install ubuntu-dev-tools from Gutsy.

2. Set up your [https://help.launchpad.net/PPAQuickStart PPA].

3. Also you need to copy your Launchpad cookie to ~/.lpcookie.

   • Firefox uses ~/.mozilla/firefox/<random>cookies.txt,

   • Epiphany uses ~/.gnome2/epiphany/mozilla/epiphany/cookies.txt.

Following up on an already filed bug

1. {{{cd sourcetree-1.2.3

}}}

1. add a changelog entry including (LP: #123456) (ClosingBugsFromChangelog)

2. {{{ppaput my-ppa -sa

}}} will

• build a source package

• upload the whole source package (including tarball - -sa option) to the dput location called my-ppa

• follow up on the bug report
• subscribe the right people

Filing a new bug

1. {{{cd somenewpackage-1.0.0

}}}

1. {{{ppaput -n my-ppa -sa

}}} will

• file a new bug

• add a changelog entry à la (LP: #123456) (ClosingBugsFromChangelog)

• upload the whole source package (including tarball - -sa option) to the dput location called my-ppa

• subscribe the right people to the bug

More information on ppaput

• File bugs at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-dev-tools

• UbuntuDevTools

• {{{man ppaput

}}}

Sponsoring

Sponsorship is organized by two teams:

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

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

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

Since Launchpad's email interface currently does not support attachments, requestsponsor puts the diffs inline into the bug report. Therefore it is inconvenient to grab a diff from the web interface. However, if you are subscribed to the team, you get the diff as (gpg-signed) mail.

Save the email in raw text form, and do:

apt-get source package
cd package-*
gpg -o - /path/to/saved/email | patch -Elp1

You should check the signature verification result.

If you are processing the universe sponsorship queue, please review the Draft [:MOTU/Sponsorship/SponsorsQueue: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!

New Packages

The process for getting NEW packages (packages which are not in Ubuntu at all yet) reviewed is explained at ["MOTU/Packages/New"].

Workflow

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

• https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-main-sponsors/+subscribedbugs

or

• http://daniel.holba.ch/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 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]