Contributing packages

From Mandriva Community Wiki

Instructions for contributors

Package maintainers already have automated notifications of update availability, as well as automated rebuild tools. So basically submitting an updated version of a simple package, such as a perl module, is just a waste of time.

On the other hand, existing package fixes, or non-trivial updates, are welcome, but you may want first to ensure the official package maintainer's interest. It is no use to waste your time if he's gonna ignore you or reject your work.

New packages, of course, are welcome! If you're looking for some free software to package, you can pick one from the package request report on our bug tracker. Once you've made your package, you'll have to find a maintainer to sponsor you!

Creating packages

Basically, you are asking someone else (a maintainer) to endorse responsability for your package, including making it compliant with Mandriva policy. The more additional work he will have to do for this, the higher chances are he will ignore or reject your own work. So do yourself a favor, and try to achieve maximum compliance directly.

Your package must:

• comply with Mandriva policy. Check various informations available on the wiki on this subject (such as the RPM HowTo), and various packaging policies, and run rpmlint on your package.
• build successfully on cooker. New package release only happens there.
• be based on latest cooker release. You can't submit new packages, or start from older releases.