Bug#1030382: encourage Vcs-Git over other Vcs-* headers

Jelmer Vernooij

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Feb 3, 2023, 12:30:03 PM2/3/23

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Package: debian-policy
Severity: wishlist

Policy currently describes Vcs-* headers as something optional, but stops to
endorse a particular Vcs.

At this point, it seems uncontroversial to encourage use of Vcs-Git
specifically here. Apart from technical arguments, it's the vcs that the
majority of packages in the archive uses - and thus will have the better
tooling, less of a learning curve for other contributors, etc.

There are very few holdouts of other vcses in the archive. I count 62
(ignoring those with an alioth URL):

* 26 on Svn
* 3 on Cvs
* 4 on Hg (2 are hg/hg-buildpackage)
* 39 on bzr (half of these are actually bzr and related packages, which I maintain)

Cheers,

Jelmer

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Jérémy Lal

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Feb 3, 2023, 12:50:04 PM2/3/23

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Le ven. 3 févr. 2023 à 18:27, Jelmer Vernooij <jel...@debian.org> a écrit :

Package: debian-policy
Severity: wishlist

Policy currently describes Vcs-* headers as something optional, but stops to
endorse a particular Vcs.

At this point, it seems uncontroversial to encourage use of Vcs-Git
specifically here. Apart from technical arguments, it's the vcs that the
majority of packages in the archive uses - and thus will have the better
tooling, less of a learning curve for other contributors, etc.

There are very few holdouts of other vcses in the archive. I count 62
(ignoring those with an alioth URL):

* 26 on Svn
* 3 on Cvs
* 4 on Hg (2 are hg/hg-buildpackage)
* 39 on bzr (half of these are actually bzr and related packages, which I maintain)

Could this remark also address the fact that in most cases,

Vcs-Git == Vcs-Browser,

and thus Vcs-Browser is irrelevant ?

Bill Allombert

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Feb 3, 2023, 1:00:05 PM2/3/23

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On Fri, Feb 03, 2023 at 05:24:36PM +0000, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Severity: wishlist
>
> Policy currently describes Vcs-* headers as something optional, but stops to
> endorse a particular Vcs.
>
> At this point, it seems uncontroversial to encourage use of Vcs-Git
> specifically here. Apart from technical arguments, it's the vcs that the
> majority of packages in the archive uses - and thus will have the better
> tooling, less of a learning curve for other contributors, etc.
>
> There are very few holdouts of other vcses in the archive. I count 62
> (ignoring those with an alioth URL):
>
> * 26 on Svn
> * 3 on Cvs
> * 4 on Hg (2 are hg/hg-buildpackage)
> * 39 on bzr (half of these are actually bzr and related packages, which I maintain)

I do not quite understand. Surely the package need to use the VCS-* header
corresponding to the VCS used by the repository, whathever it is ? This is not
a matter of preference.

Cheers,
--
Bill. <ball...@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.

Jelmer Vernooij

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Feb 3, 2023, 1:00:05 PM2/3/23

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I do agree that it is silly to have to have to set nearly the same header for
the 90% of packages that are on salsa.

It does seem like an orthogonal issue and perhaps best kept separate - there
are quite a few Vcs-Git headers set to something other than salsa.debian.org or
github.com, which means that Vcs-Browser isn't necessarily always predictable
even for Vcs-Git headers.

Jelmer

Jelmer Vernooij

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Feb 3, 2023, 1:10:03 PM2/3/23

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Sorry, to be clear I also meant encouraging the use of Git as a Vcs - rather than just
of the Vcs-Git header.

Jelmer

Bill Allombert

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Feb 3, 2023, 2:00:03 PM2/3/23

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Then maybe it would be a better fit for the developer reference than to policy ?

Andrey Rakhmatullin

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Feb 3, 2023, 3:40:04 PM2/3/23

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On Fri, Feb 03, 2023 at 05:57:21PM +0000, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:

> Sorry, to be clear I also meant encouraging the use of Git as a Vcs - rather than just
> of the Vcs-Git header.

The Policy is a wrong place for this (and the part about Vcs-* headers is
indeed a wrong place for this too).

Sean Whitton

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Feb 9, 2023, 4:20:04 PM2/9/23

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Hello,

On Fri 03 Feb 2023 at 05:24PM GMT, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:

> Package: debian-policy
> Severity: wishlist
>
> Policy currently describes Vcs-* headers as something optional, but stops to
> endorse a particular Vcs.
>
> At this point, it seems uncontroversial to encourage use of Vcs-Git
> specifically here. Apart from technical arguments, it's the vcs that the
> majority of packages in the archive uses - and thus will have the better
> tooling, less of a learning curve for other contributors, etc.
>
> There are very few holdouts of other vcses in the archive. I count 62
> (ignoring those with an alioth URL):
>
> * 26 on Svn
> * 3 on Cvs
> * 4 on Hg (2 are hg/hg-buildpackage)
> * 39 on bzr (half of these are actually bzr and related packages, which I maintain)

This strikes me as a matter for devref not Policy?

--
Sean Whitton

Jelmer Vernooij

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Feb 20, 2023, 9:10:03 AM2/20/23

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I've created a PR for devref - https://salsa.debian.org/debian/developers-reference/-/merge_requests/41

Are you saying that it doesn't belong in policy because it'd be a
recommendation rather than a must/should (at this point?), or because it's more about the
workflow inside of Debian than package contents?

Cheers,

Jelmer

Bill Allombert

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Feb 20, 2023, 3:50:05 PM2/20/23

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Yes this is about the workflow and not the package, and so far we have let developpers pick
whatever workflows suit them.

Holger Levsen

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Feb 24, 2023, 8:30:04 AM2/24/23

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On Mon, Feb 20, 2023 at 01:59:21PM +0000, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:

> I've created a PR for devref - https://salsa.debian.org/debian/developers-reference/-/merge_requests/41

fwiw, merged into developers-reference 12.16 in sid.

--
cheers,
Holger

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Edward Little

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Sep 10, 2023, 9:20:05 PM9/10/23

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Please remove the following email address: e.lit...@gmail.com

On Sat, Sep 9, 2023 at 10:39 PM Debian Bug Tracking System <ow...@bugs.debian.org> wrote:

Your message dated Sat, 09 Sep 2023 19:35:06 -0700
with message-id <87a5tu2...@hope.eyrie.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#1030382: encourage Vcs-Git over other Vcs-* headers
has caused the Debian Bug report #1030382,
regarding encourage Vcs-Git over other Vcs-* headers
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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1030382: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1030382
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Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org>
To: Jelmer Vernooij <jel...@debian.org>
Cc: 103038...@bugs.debian.org
Bcc:
Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2023 19:35:06 -0700
Subject: Re: Bug#1030382: encourage Vcs-Git over other Vcs-* headers

Jelmer Vernooij <jel...@debian.org> writes:

> I've created a PR for devref -
> https://salsa.debian.org/debian/developers-reference/-/merge_requests/41

> Are you saying that it doesn't belong in policy because it'd be a
> recommendation rather than a must/should (at this point?), or because
> it's more about the workflow inside of Debian than package contents?

Policy only documents the contents of source and binary packages and a few
related topics like the archive structure and the various control files
that come along with packages. How packages are maintained is, so far at
least, mostly outside the scope of Policy, which includes making concrete
recommendations about version control systems, forges, workflows, etc.

Therefore, the Developers Reference is the right spot for this. Since
that has been merged, I'm going to close out this Policy bug.

--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>