Re: Offer to maintain GNU's Debbugs instance (and modernize it)

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Michael,

Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> writes:

> Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi Felix,
>
> Hi Maxim
>
>>> My main motivation is that the Guix project, a sub-project of GNU,
>>> depends on GNU Debbugs to a great extent. Substantial efforts were
>>> already made to augment it, but they remain incomplete and
>>> under-appreciated. [1]
>>
>> That sounds like an exciting (and ambitious!) project.  My take on it
>> would have been more conservative: try to at least have a rebased
>> version of the GNU Debbugs instance on top of the upstream Debbugs one,
>> to benefit of its bug fixes and new features (?), before attempting to
>> rewrite it into something else.
>
> Exactly my approach.

OK, good to know there's willingness to go there.

>> If we had GNU Debbugs source code in git on Savannah, with the extra
>> customization as extra patches on top of upstream, I think we could then
>> package it in Guix, make a service for it, and *then*, be well equipped
>> to work on rewriting it, if there's value and/or motivation in doing so
>> (like you seem to have!)
>>
>> Is this an effort you'd be interested sharing (the preconditions for a
>> rewrite I've laid out above, as I see it?)  I could lend a hand, as it's
>> something I've been meaning to do for a while.
>
> If the Debbugs software would be to be rewritten, we shall synchronize
> with the projects using debbugs.gnu.org. Or do you ("Guix") intend to
> have your own server?

I don't think there's a concrete plan at the moment, but having our own
server could be an good way to dogfood any newer GNU Debbugs version
rebased on upstream and test an eventual 'debbugs-service-type' service
to be contributed to Guix.  When considered well behaving, the shared
GNU infrastructure could switch to that version.  A VM image could also
be spun using 'guix system image ...' if that's helpful.  But we aren't
there :-).

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim