[ckan-dev] CKAN Debian Packaging Community Meetup

Wed Sep 21 05:50:05 UTC 2011

Hi all,

As a user and not knowing a lot of the python environment, I like the  
Debian packaging approach - certainly if you need to set up
CKAN in a large organisation.

I have however two requests :

1.  It would be nice to have also an rpm-packaging for Redhat(-like)  
systems - Organisations tend to be very specific about supported  
flavours and versions of OS.

2.  Is it possible to stay independent from the minor revision of the  
packages you rely on.
e.g.  Right now the systems works great on ubuntu 10.4.03 LTS   
(  pylons 0.9.7 ) but not on ubuntu 10.10 ( pylons 0.10 ).
Coming from the Java world,  I find this very annoying and it reminds  
me of my C-days long ago.
Maybe a more stringent backward compatibility policy and dependency  
checks in packaging might help ?
Of course this shouldn't prevent the community from moving on with its  
innovation,  just try to have a little more discipline in evaluating  
options now that the installed base is growing.

I'm confident you'll find a nice solution for packaging and please  
keep up the good work.

Thanks,

Marc

On 20 Sep 2011, at 18:58, James Gardner wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I just wanted to let you know that I'm planning a community meetup  
> this
> Thursday at the slightly earlier time of 5pm UK time to discuss CKAN
> packaging.
>
> For those of you that aren't already aware, since the Berlin OKCon in
> June, CKAN has been available to install on Ubuntu 10.04LTS using  
> Debian
> packages. The whole process was described in a workshop whose notes  
> are
> still available at http://ckan.okfnpad.org/sprint-okcon-2011-wishlist
> lines 63 onwards.
>
> We've been using Debian packages for various CKAN instances including
> data.gov.uk since then and learned a few lessons about what works and
> what doesn't and it would be great to hear your experiences too so  
> that
> we can design a new packaging approach that works even better.
>
> So far the following are all attending:
>
> Myself
> Nils Toedtmann
> Jan Kokoska
> Max Ludwig
>
> with J. Félix Ontañón providing comments via email (since he can't  
> make
> the meeting).
>
> The agenda will be:
>
> * Summary of the existing packaging approach, its strengths and  
> weaknesses
> * Feedback of other people's experiences
> * Discussion of proposed improvements including test integration
>
> Intended outcomes:
>
> * A preferred approach for deploying CKAN via packages
> * A packaging workflow that supports the way CKAN is developed and  
> used
>
> If you deploy your own CKAN instances or have expertise in Debian
> packaging then it would be great if you could join us. Also if you  
> know
> anyone who is an Ubuntu package maintainer it would be great to have
> CKAN included in the official Ubuntu repositories so that is something
> we should work towards.
>
> If you'd like to join, please let me know your Skype ID via email by
> 4:30pm UK time on Thursday or add your details to the pad below:
>
> http://ckan.okfnpad.org/meetup-2011-09-22
>
> Cheers,
>
> James
>
>
>
>
>
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