Ubuntu information on the Debian Package Tracking System and the Developer Packages Overview

Users of Debian derivatives sometimes report bugs that are not reported in the
Debian BTS, but that also affect Debian. It already happened a few times that
looking at the Ubuntu bugs for my packages allowed me to fix an unreported bug
in my Debian packages.

But it’s difficult to keep track of the status of our packages in Ubuntu, since
Launchpad doesn’t provide a per-Debian-maintainer summary. Since it’s always fun to abuse proprietary software, I fetched all the bug data from Launchpad and inserted it in an SQLite DB (takes about 30 mins at 1200 HTTP requests/minute — it would be so much easier if the Launchpad devs added a text export of all bugs).

The result is that there’s now an “Ubuntu” box on the Packages Tracking System, giving the current version in Ubuntu, a link to the Ubuntu patch (if any), and the number of open bugs. An Ubuntu column has also been added to the Debian Developer Packages Overview by Christoph Berg, with the current version in Ubuntu and the number of open bugs. It’s hidden by default: click on Display Configuration to enable it (then it’s stored in a cookie).

I hope that this will help Debian maintainers to track what has been reported/fixed in Ubuntu. Also, if other Debian derivatives want to export the same kind of information, don’t hesitate to contact us.

See for example:

PS: the data might be slightly outdated, as it is processed on merkel.d.o, which was offline until recently. Expect it to be up-to-date in the next 24 hours.

9 thoughts on “Ubuntu information on the Debian Package Tracking System and the Developer Packages Overview

  1. That’s awesome!

    I’ve found a couple of things to improve:
    – in DDPO, if Debian has 1.0-1 and Ubuntu has 1.0-1build1, it shouldn’t be red (buildX are like binNMUs so should be ignored).
    – if Ubuntu is syncing the package from Debian experimental it shouldn’t be red (maybe a different color).

    Thanks for your work!

  2. >it would be so much easier if the Launchpad devs added a text export of all bugs).

    They do. Add +text on to the end of the URL for the bug.

  3. @Proprietary software developer: I know about +text. What Launchpad doesn’t provide is an interface to fetch *all* bugs as text in one HTTP request. What I do is:
    – fetch all bug numbers as text
    – fetch each bug as text, separately

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