Team Purpose

A team of UbuntuDevelopers has agreed on doing periodical reviews of code. To accelerate SponsorshipProcess members of the team will check

• the main/restricted sponsoring queue: http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.subscriber=ubuntu-main-sponsors

• the universe/multiverse sponsoring queue: http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.subscriber=ubuntu-universe-sponsors

If you are a member of the UbuntuDevelopers, it's highly appreciated if you join the team and help out:

Still efforts of interested new contributors in reviewing patches are appreciated.

Workflow

Members of the team

• will triage bugs (in the bug lists mentioned above) weekly,
• pick bugs they're interested (based on their area of expertise and preference),
• subscribe to bugs where a review might take longer to themselves to avoid duplication of work.

If the patch was deemed not to be good enough yet, the bug will be re-assigned to the patch author and set to In Progress. The preferred way of closing bugs is ClosingBugsFromChangelog.

Reviewers are available in #ubuntu-reviews so you can talk to them and discuss issues there. The current reviewer is listed in the topic.

Tip: run zdump UTC to get the current time in UTC.

Keeping the Sponsoring Queue manageable

To avoid the bug lists to huge, the following measures might be useful. (Note: to unsubscribe the team, there's a small script available.)

Bugs fixing small details

1. Ask the contributor to forward the patch upstream.

2. Open an empty upstream bug task.
3. Mark the Ubuntu task as 'Fix Committed'.

4. Unsubscribe either ubuntu-universe-sponsors or ubuntu-main-sponsors.

Not suitable for the current release period

1. Let the contributor know that the patch is not suitable for the current release period.

2. Unsubscribe either ubuntu-universe-sponsors or ubuntu-main-sponsors.

3. Subscribe yourself to the bug report (this ensures it shows up in the following url)
4. Milestone the bug to 'later'.

5. Visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/people/+me/+bugs/?field.milestone%3Alist=196 once the new release opens and upload the fix.

Review

As a reviewer you should make sure the following rules are observed:

• adhere to StableReleaseUpdates, FreezeExceptionProcess, SyncRequestProcess, Merge policy,

• patches should apply, the resulting package should build and work correctly, built packages should install cleanly,
• don't hesitate to let the patch go through several review iterations, if you're unsure or unhappy about it.
• sync requests don't needs sponsoring or uploads; if you're sufficiently happy with the sync request of a non team member, simply
  • mark it as confirmed,

  • add your ACK in a comment,

  • unsubscribe the sponsors team,

  • subscribe ubuntu-archive to the bug.

• keep the name of the patch author in debian/changelog and use -k<keyid> to sign the package with your key.

• make sure to ask the patch author to submit the patch to Debian and/or Upstream.

Packages maintained in Launchpad's Code Hosting

Special attention is required if packages are maintained on Launchpad's Code Hosting. You might run into a message like this, when getting the source package:

$ apt-get source ubuntu-artwork
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
NOTICE: 'ubuntu-artwork' packaging is maintained in the 'Bzr' version control system at:
https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-art-pkg/ubuntu-artwork/ubuntu
Please use:
bzr get https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-art-pkg/ubuntu-artwork/ubuntu
to retrieve the latest (possible unreleased) updates to the package.
[...]
$

In these cases, please either:

• ask the contributor to register a merge proposal

• (if you can commit to the branch in question) check out the branch and commit the change

Being picky

It makes sense to be picky in the following cases:

• the reason for the patch is not documented very well
• the origin of the patch is not documented very well

• Upstream should comment about the patch first (especially Debian/Bugs)

• UbuntuDevelopment/PatchTaggingGuidelines is not adhered to

It makes NO sense to be picky in the following cases:

• small typo in the changelog
• small mistake somewhere

In the cases of small mistakes, please

• try to fix them yourself,
• let the contributor know what you fixed, so they can learn from their mistakes (attach the resulting diff).

This will keep the process lightweight and fast, but still train new contributors.

Credits

• Give credit where it's due.
• It's not possible to credit everybody in the Changed-By when you merge multiple debdiffs, but still keep everybody's name in the changelog.

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!

References

• MOTU/Sponsorship/SponsorsQueue - Emmet Hikory wrote up an excellent guide to getting the universe queue under control.

• https://help.launchpad.net/PPA

• Process documentation

  • StableReleaseUpdates

  • FreezeExceptionProcess

  • SponsorshipProcess

  • SyncRequestProcess

• http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/sponsorship_checklist.html

• http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html

• Debian New Maintainer's Guide

• Debian Policy

Review Tips

Source

• Review debdiff of version in the archive with the proposed package.

• Check the release target in debian/changelog.

• If it's a new upstream, check if the .orig.tar.gz is the same as the upstream one. (md5sum(1)). The reasons for differing tarballs must be in debian/changelog.

• Use interdiff(1) (patchutils package) against the .diff.gz and debdiff(1) (devscripts package) against your test-built binary packages to examine what you've changed (and ensure it tallies with what you expected to change).

  • Use filterdiff to exclude generated or annoying parts

• Check if debian/copyright is correct, accurate and complete.

  • See http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/12/msg00007.html and http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/12/msg00194.html

  • If a package uses several licences, list which file is under which licence
  • Always make sure it is clear, who the copyright holder is, and the year of copyright
• Check for unuseful comments (e.g. autogenerated # dh_X in debian/rules) in scripts

Build

• Check if the clean target works properly (build twice).
• NEW packages should be tried to build in pbuilder (to verify sufficient Build-Depends).

• Run dpkg -c on the built package or debc in the source tree to see if everything installed to the right place.

• Run lintian on the <package>_<version>_<arch>.changes file.

Guideline Criteria for New Package Inclusion

A package NEW to Ubuntu should be actively maintained upstream and receive security- and bugfixes regularly. If this can't be fulfilled, the package maintainer is 100% responsible for the above.

Maintainers are encouraged to check if work is already being done by Debian maintainers at (http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/requested and http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/being_packaged). Following up on existing bug reports with a link to your source package. (Also check out the Debian Mentoring FAQ to find out how to get your package included in Debian.)

• Packaging review
  1. MUST:

     1. Package must meet Ubuntu versioning & Maintainer requirements

     2. Package must match current Ubuntu (and Debian) packaging policies
     3. Package must build, install, run, remove, and purge cleanly
  2. SHOULD:
     1. Package should be lintian clean
     2. Contents of debian/ should be sane
     3. Changelog should close a "needs-packaging" bug

     4. Package should follow http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/best-pkging-practices.html

• Maintenance review
  1. MUST:
     1. Package must contain a watch file or get-orig-source rule
        • If upstream is no more, the packager should consider adopting the upstream package somewhere
        • Packages who implement get-orig-source for packages with watch files get extra points
     2. Packaged version must not have any known security or critical bugs
  2. SHOULD:
     1. Packaging scripts should be readable and readily comprehensible
     2. Upstream should be responsive, and maintain a bug tracker
     3. Packaged version should be latest upstream
     4. Package should not be native without an approved spec
• Suitability review
  1. MUST:
     1. Package must meet copyright / licensing requirements
     2. Non-native packages must have verifiable cryptographic path to upstream source
     3. Package must be advocated by at least two members of ubuntu-dev (the packager may count as one)
  2. SHOULD:
     1. Package should work on a standard Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/etc. system
     2. Package should provide hints to system services (app-install-data, menus, etc.) to ease installation and use
     3. Package should provide Ubuntu-specific documentation for variances in behaviour from upstream
     4. Package should provide a Homepage: header in debian/control

MUST, as used above, indicates that a package not meeting that test is not appropriate for inclusion in the archive.

SHOULD, as used above, indicates that the reviewer should explicitly agree to the variance from the condition prior to advocating the package for inclusion in the archive.

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