Debian related goals for 2010

Here’s stuff that I’d like to do this year, more or less by decreasing order of importance:

• translate my Debian book into English and get it published;
• finish the cleanup of the perl API in dpkg-dev in order to create libdpkg-perl;
• create dpkg-buildflags to export default build flags that packages should use (and get rid of the code setting those environment variables in dpkg-buildpackage), needed to properly fix #489771;
• ensure the new source formats continue to gain acceptance by improving whatever is needed;
• design a generic vcs-buildpackage infrastructure to be integrated in dpkg-dev. This design will probably happen through a DEP (Debian Enhancement Proposal) to ensure we have had proper discussion before someone gets to the implementation;
• continue fixing dpkg bugs faster than they are reported;
• enhance our infrastructure to ease interaction between contributors and to have a better view of how each package is maintained (see my last blog entry on this topic);
• update the developers-reference where needed and fix some of the numerous wishlist bugs;
• rewrite in C the last perl scripts provided by the dpkg binary package (update-alternatives/mksplit mainly, for dpkg-divert there’s a preliminary patch available already) so that it’s easier to build a minimal system without perl-base;
• integrate the 3-way merge tool for Debian changelogs in dpkg-dev;

All of this probably doesn’t fit in my free time (being a father since last month does not help increasing my free time ), so if you’re interested in seeing one or more of those projects completed, and if you know some person/company that could sponsor them, get in touch with me!