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In this issue:
+ Submit projects to be funded by Freexian
+ DEP-14 on Git packaging layout moved to candidate status
+ Debian automatically generated QEMU images for many architectures available for development
+ Yes another uscan feature: ctype
+ metasnap.debian.net

Submit projects to be funded by Freexian ----------------------------------------

Freexian and the team of paid LTS contributors decided to try to give
back to the various Debian teams that are impacted by the work done in
the LTS project. We are now putting aside a part of the money collected
for LTS and we are offering to use this money to fund development
projects benefiting to the above teams and to Debian in general.

You can find more details about the rationale in this debian-project
post[1].

You can learn more about how to submit project proposals in the salsa
project used to coordinate this new initiative:

https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/project-funding

We received the first project proposal[2] from the Debian security team,
but there's enough funding available to cover multiple projects of this
size currently.

-- Raphaël Hertzog

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2020/11/msg00002.html
[2] https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/project-funding/-/merge_requests/2

DEP-14 on Git packaging layout moved to candidate status --------------------------------------------------------

DEP-14[3] (Recommended layout for Git packaging repositories) has been
updated to avoid the use of the "master" term. We're now recommending
"debian/latest" as the default packaging branch. The DEP has also been
promoted from DRAFT to CANDIDATE, since the bulk of the recommendation
has been in wide-use for a long time.

A good next step would be for the various tools to be updated so that
their default behaviour match what's recommended in this DEP. For
git-buildpackage this has been requested a long time ago in #829444[4],
I'm sure the maintainer would love to get some merge request implementing
this.

-- Raphaël Hertzog

[3] https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep14/
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/829444

Debian automatically generated QEMU images for many architectures available for development
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Project DQIB (Debian Quick Image Baker)[5] aims at providing
weekly-generated Debian sid images for QEMU for many architectures. All
downloads also contain a README file with a sample QEMU command that will
immediately launch your image. You can then login via the emulated
terminal or via SSH and install all the packages you need and have root
privileges. They can be useful for developers when porterboxes are not
appropriate for some reason (you need root privileges, you need to tinker
with networking or file system, you need more disk space, you do not have
access to porterboxes because you are not a DD, any other reason).

Not all Debian architectures are currently supported. If you can help to
fix those that are not, thank you for letting me know!

-- Giovanni Mascellani

[5] https://people.debian.org/~gio/dqib/

Yes another uscan feature: ctype
--------------------------------

Since devscripts 2.20.5, uscan accepts a new watchline parameter for
uscan components: `ctype`. It helps uscan to get current version of a
component before comparison: it uses `version` field of package.json
''(JavaScript)'' or META.json ''(Perl)''.

For now, only "nodejs" and "perl" are accepted. If you want to add
another language, you just have to post an MR to devscripts to add a new
"ctype" in `lib/Devscripts/Uscan/Ctype/` directory.

metasnap.debian.net
-------------------

Tools like debrebuild[6] or debbisect[7] need to know which snapshot.d.o
timestamp to use to obtain a certain package or set of packages. The new
metasnap[8] service provides this information in a machine readable
format. It allows one to retrieve a list of all existing snapshot.d.o
timestamps, find out which version a package had at a certain timestamp,
which timestamp and suite referenced a certain package or which minimal
set of timestamps contains a given set of packages. The `first_seen`
attribute of the snapshot.d.o API is insufficient to provide this
functionality because it lists when a file was first seen in the pool
directory. This does not allow to find out the suite that referenced a
package and breaks down in situations where a file was in the pool
directory but not referenced by any Packages file or where a package with
the same version and architecture existed in a suite in multiple
intervals. The service website metasnap.debian.net[8] contains more
information, allows one to download the full sqlite database containing
the version information, explains all the possible queries and provides a
javascript driven demo of the API that shows how to use the service to
find out a set of snapshot.d.o timestamps that is needed to provide all
packages from a buildinfo file. You can also try out the latter
functionality by running this command:

curl -F 'buildinfo=<foo.buildinfo' https://metasnap.debian.net/cgi-bin/api

[6] https://manpages.debian.org/testing/devscripts/debrebuild.1.en.html
[7] https://manpages.debian.org/testing/devscripts/debbisect.1.en.html
[8] https://metasnap.debian.net

--
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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