#759995 RFH: developers-reference -- guidelines and information for Debian developers

Package:
wnpp
Source:
wnpp
Submitter:
Lucas Nussbaum
Date:
2025-11-28 22:19:05 UTC
Severity:
normal
#759995#5
Date:
2014-08-30 22:49:53 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Following a previous discussion on state of developers-reference[1], I:
- switched the package to git, and moved it to collab-maint;
- went through all bugs with patches;
- fixed a few other bugs;
- reviewed other bugs, fixed some of them, and closed those that weren't
  relevant anymore.

This reduced the bug count from ~100 to 79.  However, I mostly did this
out of guilt of still being listed as one of the package's maintainer,
and I would love someone else to take over.

developers-reference is an important piece of Debian's developers
documentation, and helps ensuring that our various packaging teams
continue to share common procedures. It is also one of the recommended
documents for prospective contributors (I remember printing it and
reading it religiously). It is very sad that we are not able to keep it
in a good state.

One-time contributors are also welcomed. As "documented" in #754189,
consensual changes can just be commited by anyone (and non-consensual
changes should be discussed on the BTS prior to being committed).

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2014/06/msg00033.html

Lucas
#759995#10
Date:
2014-12-09 18:44:17 UTC
From:
To:
Hi, I am a long term user of Debian (mostly desktop) and a software
engineer by profession.
I would love to start contributing to Debian, but I don't have the
experience,

Helping to maintain this package looks like a good start. :-)
I was looking at the linked discussion thread and the idea of "Publishing
directly to the website on each git push. [or other frequency]" is
something I would enjoy implementing.
Of course I'm willing to do all other maintenance tasks as well.

I'd do some initial reading on my own and can I then get some guidance to
get me up to speed?

Thanks
Martin Vlk
#759995#13
Date:
2018-09-16 11:16:24 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Lucas,

After doing some bug triaging this weekend on the dev-ref and finding
it not too bad, I'd like to offer help in maintaining the dev-ref…

Let me know if that be ok with you.
#759995#18
Date:
2019-07-30 02:35:28 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Tobi, hi everyone!

That would be very much ok with me! :) I only got involved in
developers-reference very recently, so here I mostly want to spread the
news that after 22 years of the Debian Developers Reference being maintained
as an SGML document, the sources are now maintained as ReStructuredText, while
the translations remain .po files.

This will make updating the document so much easier! \o/

Big kudos and many thanks to Osamu Aoki for doing most of the work on this.
Obviously also many thanks to everyone else involved, both upstream and in
Debian!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org
       PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C
#759995#23
Date:
2019-10-03 10:58:31 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

this is just a quick heads-up that src:developers-reference still needs
help and hands. The switch from SGML to ReStructuredText has happened,
so contributing should be much more straightforward now. There are still
74 bugs open currently and all *I* can surely commit to is doing an upload
once one or two bugs are fixed in GIT.

Also, the package is kept on salsa in the Debian group, so any DD can
just commit. Please do so!

So, src:developers-reference needs more contributors (whether one time
or constant) and also more people acting as uploaders would be great.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org
       PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C