[Mageia-dev] So, you want to become a mageia packager

Sat Feb 19 21:18:48 CET 2011

Hi there,
+
+As the title says so, this mail is intended to all people who would like
+to become a packager, but who don’t know where to look, what’s the path,
+what to do.
+
+As you may or may not know, mentoring started a few weeks ago, with some
+people who are already quite experienced in packaging.
+
+These people are making progress quite quickly, and will soon be able to
+be full-fledged packagers. Now, many of you would like to do that too.
+
+So how to get started ?
+-----------------------
+
+Well, there are several things you can already do.
+
+First, I suggest you to join #mageia-mentoring so that you can ask any
+question you’d like to people who are already packagers. Don’t hesitate
+to ask anything, there’s no stupid question. If you don’t get an
+immediate answer, don’t hesitate to ping us
+
+It would also be great that other mentors join the channel as well, so
+that we can answer people. At the moment ahmad, mikala, anssi, Nanar and
+I are on the channel.
+
+I know nothing about packaging, could you give me a pointer ?
+-------------------------------------------------------------
+
+There’s a documentation that tries to summarize how to do a rpm on this
+page:
+http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=rpm_start
+
+Don’t be afraid by the size of the page, take your time to read it.
+We would appreciate some feedbacks about this documentation. Tell us if
+some things are not clear, so that we can rephrase it, so that we can
+explain it to you.
+
+It’s not that hard really, and I suggest you to take a look at an
+existing spec to see how it’s done.
+
+At the moment, many packages have been imported, but many packages are
+also waiting for someone to maintain it. You can have a list of
+unmaintained packages here:
+http://maint.mandriva.com/listpkgs.php?owner=1
+
+Beware, check first that the package is not deprecated, unmaintained
+upstream, and start with a small one, not very difficult, like a small
+console app or a game. Again, if some bits are difficult to understand,
+please tell us :-)
+
+
+I already know some bits of packaging, would like to package for mageia,
+what can I do ?
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Packaging policies represent a good amount of doc that might be
+difficult to learn. You don’t have to know them by heart at first, just
+to know that they exist, and that you should refer to them when you are
+trying to do. For instance, if you’re interested in python packages, you
+don’t have to know the perl packaging policy, but you should know that
+they exist and refer to it if you have a perl dependency to your
+package.
+
+Package policies are listed in this page :
+http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=policies-review
+
+You might also have a look at the aforementionned rpm start page in case
+of doubt, and ask packagers when you don’t know.
+
+Come on #mageia-mentoring, so that you can get in touch with a mentor,
+and if he becomes available, you will be able to start with the various
+tools we use to build packages.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+I do hope that this mail gives you a path to start with, please tell me
+if I am missing something, and again don’t be discouraged by the amount
+of documentation you will read.
+
+Regards,
+-- 
+Rémy CLOUARD
+() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
+/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
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