https://debconf25.debconf.org/talks/40-use-perl-almost-annual-meeting-of-the-debian-perl-group/ use Perl; # Almost annual meeting of the Debian Perl Group Room: BoF room (B03-035) Time: Jul 14 (Mon): 16:30 CEST = 14:30 UTC Duration: 0:45 Pad (someone might post questions): https://pad.dc25.debconf.org/p/40-use-perl-almost-annual-meeting-of-the-debian- IRC: #debian-perl (and maybe #debconf-bof) Jitsi: https://jitsi.debian.social/DebConf25pkg-perlBoF Intro, part 1: Organisation =========================== Welcome people We need volunteers to help run this discussion: - Who takes notes? We're using Gobby: gobby.debian.org/debconf23/bof/pkg-perl A: emollier - Who monitors other communication channels? - pad: https://pad.dc25.debconf.org/p/40-use-perl-almost-annual-meeting-of-the-debian- - IRC #debconf-bof - IRC #debian-perl - We won't monitor the Gobby chat. Intro, part 2: Welcome, who's here? =================================== Introduce yourself if you like! Intro: Agenda ============= Anything to add to/scratch from the agenda? Order of topics? Team status =========== Statistics ---------- https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianPerlGroup/Statistics * Members/committers * LHF sessions * New members Discussion of the general situation. Is it sustainable? If not, for today we can focus on identifying and naming problems. Reviewing through the statistics page. Decline between 2021 and 2022, then activity is constant. Numer of contributors with more than 100 commits evolves somewhat randomly. LHF: gather the team on tasks which are boring. 2021 had 11 unique pariticipants, but number dropped. Most consistent people were emollier, gregoa, otherwise people went usually once. fsfs: managed to take a couple, thinks it's a pity but is a fact. Robert Lacroix: found difficult to recruit people with perl experience. People are now comfortable with python, not perl. Taking active steps to replace perl code to python. Reflected by the activity in the Debian Perl team. There were about two people appearing on average per year. tchet: there are one off contributors often, and may disappear afterward. Robert Lacroix: Perl activity also winding down e.g. from RHEL 6 to RHEL 8. gregoa: still doing good with maintaining packages. Problem is the activity level of members going down. Q: popcon numbers showing users also going down on Perl and Perl modules? A: Perl is lintian and debhelper. People use these tools and transitively Perl, skewing some numbers. Some initiatives exist to replace the language in use (Rust, Python). Future of LHF? -------------- Question to those who attended LHF sessions in the last year or so: Are LHF still giving us more benefits than problems? If we keep LHF: Current date + time: 17:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC alternatively Is the current timeslot very problematic for some people who would like to attend? fsfs: thumbs up nodens: not much participation in the last year, but a good way back in. Hoping to attend sessions when possible. Might need better timing but targeting the 4 or 5 attendances. fsfs: same here. Reminder is useful. gregoa: no cost to keep it, might as well keep it up. emollier: nothing more to add. :) Robert Lacroix: packages in Debian or CPAN? nodens: idea is to package perl modules into Debian. Often we encounter bugs, try to fix them and upstream them. Some people in the team have been good at doing that. Goal is to avoid using cpan when it's available in Debian. RL: in the RHEL world, there is some level of complementing the operating system's distribution with cpan. (e.g. something about authentification dropped from rhel, still available in Debian.) Info: Perl 5.40/5.42 ==================== 5.40.1 in unstable and testing, waiting for the trixie release. 5.42 has been released upstream recently. Git branch names ================ * DEP-14 * BoF 2021: we should be consistent across packages, and if we change, this needs coordination and probably helpers (remote repos, local repos, tools, …) and an "owner" * BoF 2022: Decided: it is "debian/latest" AI: dam is going to "drive" the effort * Since then: some notes and research, https://gobby.debian.org/export/Teams/Perl/new-branch-layout + `dep-14-convert-git-branch-names' in devscripts + gbp-pull _might_ get a feature (branch exisits) to handle renames of upstream to upstream/latest → plan (who what when) Q: everyone happy about the change? A: no objections nodens: happy to give a hand gregoa: cool but not alone emollier: suitable lhf target? nodens: need to determine how to proceed and whether it makes sense. upstream-repo -> upstreamvcs ============================ There are 'upstreamvcs' branches in meta.git and pkg-perl-tools.git. Good to merge? gregoa: there looks to be convergence to a new trend. implemented dpt subcommands to proceed to the conversion. It would be nice some people have a look at it to play around. There might be some bugs still hiding in the shadows. emollier: might have some time next week to try that out. Info: uscan / MetaCPAN ====================== MetaCPAN banning crawlers also hit uscan. Solved for the time being; yadd has ideas for improving uscan Sprints ======= No recent sprints. Do we want sprints? If yes, when and where? Specific topics? There will be a MiniDebConf in Hamburg in 2026 (4 May - 11 May) Last one was like Hamburg 2022 or 2023. gregoa: was rather productive. Thoughts? nodens: might be able to attend if there is something else, so Minidebconf would facilitate things. not making promises. Q: link between Med and Perl? A: emollier mostly needed perl modules and stuck. gregoa: why asking? alignment of neurons and synapses tchet: mostly trying to help with teams synergies. [the "owl" dropped off the bus a short while announcing end of BoF apparently :] Tooling for inactive group members ================================== Existed when we used Alioth, has been discussed a few time since then without any results --> remove from TODO list? Salsa CI ======== Current status: no shared approach, some people/package use it, others don't. Continue like this or common policy? Any other business? ===================