Improve Packaging Guide

Registered by Daniel Holbach

The Packaging Guide is the first stop for many future Ubuntu Developers. It was never meant to replace the Debian policy or the Debian New Maintainers' Guide, but instead give new developers a good idea what packaging is about and expose them to the basics of packaging and the packaging tools in a practical way.

The current Packaging Guide leaves a lot to be desired. It needs an update, it needs to be better at listing one good way to do things, it needs to explain launchpad usage, explain how to collaborate with upstreams, explain common Ubuntu processes. Also would it be good to make it available in web, ebook, etc. format and make it translatable.

We want to transform as many wiki documents as possible into separate packaging articles.

Blueprint information

Status:
Started
Approver:
Jono Bacon
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
Daniel Holbach
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
Daniel Holbach
Definition:
Pending Approval
Series goal:
Proposed for natty
Implementation:
Good progress
Milestone target:
None
Started by
Daniel Holbach

Sprints

Whiteboard

ACTIONS:
 - dholbach/barry to investigate if sphinx somehow supports translations
   - I checked with the python-sphinx devs on IRC, and they have planned support for gettext-based translations for version 1.1.
   - http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/howto/i18n.html
 - dholbach to investigate if we can have a complete guide in mallard
   - see http://projectmallard.org, particularly http://projectmallard.org/1.0/index.html
 - dholbach to investigate if html2pdf solves our mallard problems
  - I have checked this (j1mc), and I was not impressed with the output. Links weren't clickable. (I converted them using wkhtmltopdf)
  - The html is customizeable via CSS. To output to the default html, you would do "gnome-doc-tool html *.page" from within the packaging guide directory.
 - Sphinx: http://sphinx.pocoo.org/
 - dholbach
 - iain to ask devel list about identifying which of the current packging guide content can be reused for the articles
   - for me (jim campbell) it would be best to know which of the current packaging guide content *can't* be reused for the articles. which ones are currently inaccurate / out of date?
     - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CategoryPackagingGuideNeedsUpdate
     - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CategoryPackagingGuideNeedsPolicyReference

Work items for natty-alpha-1:
[dholbach] investigate if sphinx somehow supports translations (going to be in 1.1, trunk works already, we have 1.0 in the archive): DONE
[barry] investigate if sphinx somehow supports translations: DONE
[dholbach] investigate if we can have a complete guide in mallard: DONE
[dholbach] investigate if html2pdf solves our mallard problems: DONE
[dholbach] set up launchpad project (add dev and doc teams to committers) (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-packaging-guide): DONE

Work items for natty-alpha-2:
[laney] ask devel list about identifying which of the current packaging guide content can be reused for the articles: DONE
[dholbach] write "Getting set up": DONE
[dholbach] write "Fixing a bug": DONE

Work items for natty-alpha-3:
[barry] merge in UDD: DONE
[dholbach] blog/facebook "Getting set up" article: DONE
[dholbach] share "Getting set up" article with Full Circle, mailing lists: INPROGRESS
[dholbach] work with Duane on screencasts for "Getting set up": INPROGRESS
[dholbach] share "Fixing an Ubuntu bug" article with Full Circle, mailing lists: INPROGRESS
[dholbach] blog/facebook "Fixing an Ubuntu bug" article: DONE
[dholbach] work with Duane on screencasts for "Fixing a bug": INPROGRESS

Work items for ubuntu-11.04-beta:
[dholbach] Flow chart of steps required (merge from outreach-resources): DONE
[stefanlsd] Flow chart of steps required (merge from outreach-resources): DONE
[dholbach] schedule meeting: TODO
[dholbach] Hold Packaging Doc Day: TODO
[dholbach] Pre-req knowledge required for a specific task. Documentation should point them the knowledge: DONE
[laney] emphasise working with upstream (debian): TODO
[barry] help write some documentation for Python packaging: TODO

(?)

Work Items