Hi,

my Name is Andreas Vögele. I'm VOEGELAS on CPAN and voegelas on Salsa.

I'd like to package my Perl module IP::Geolocation::MMDB and its
prerequisite Alien::libmaxminddb.

While Alien::libmaxminddb depends on Alien::Build and its dependencies,
the built IP::Geolocation::MMDB module does only depend on libmaxminddb
and modules that are distributed with Perl.

Once the modules are available as packages, I'd like to get support for IP::Geolocation::MMDB into SpamAssassin as an alternative to the
deprecated MaxMind::DB::Reader module.

Both modules are stable and are only updated if Perl or libmaxminddb
require changes.

I build Debian packages at https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:voegelas/perl-IP-Geolocation-MMDB and I maintain Fedora packages.

Right now, I'm reading documents from
https://perl-team.pages.debian.net/, but I'm not sure where to begin. 
Should I create an RFP and wait for approval or rejection? Should I ask
to become a member of the Debian Perl Group?

I'm familiar with Perl, C and packaging and could work on packages with
bugs or maybe lintian.

Kind regards,
Andreas

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 18 Feb 2025 13:05:59 +0100, Andreas V�gele wrote:

my Name is Andreas V�gele. I'm VOEGELAS on CPAN and voegelas on Salsa.

Hi,

and thanks for reaching out!

I'd like to package my Perl module IP::Geolocation::MMDB and its
prerequisite Alien::libmaxminddb.

Cool.

While Alien::libmaxminddb depends on Alien::Build and its dependencies, the built IP::Geolocation::MMDB module does only depend on libmaxminddb and modules that are distributed with Perl.

As a technical side note, in Debian we often go ahead without
packaging Alien::libfoo because we know that we have libfoo and we
can use libfoo-dev at buildtime (and we don't want to try and download something from the 'net anyway). Patching out the Alien::* stuff from Makefile.PL or Build.PL and setting LIB and INC either manually or
with the help of ExtUtils::PkgConfig is often trivial. [0]

Once the modules are available as packages, I'd like to get support for IP::Geolocation::MMDB into SpamAssassin as an alternative to the deprecated MaxMind::DB::Reader module.

Sounds good.

I build Debian packages at https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:voegelas/perl-IP-Geolocation-MMDB
and I maintain Fedora packages.

That's a good start :)

Right now, I'm reading documents from https://perl-team.pages.debian.net/, but I'm not sure where to begin.� Should I create an RFP and wait for approval or rejection? Should I ask to become a member of the Debian Perl Group?

Depends on your aim:
- If you "just" want to get IP::Geolocation::MMDB into Debian,
packaged by someone else than an RFP (Request for Packaging (by
others)) bug is technically correct, but just asking here has the
same effect :)
- If you want to package it yourself and maintain it in the future,
you should file an ITP bug (Intent to Package) and we
can add you to the team on salsa, where you can push a repo with
the source package, which one of us will review and eventually
upload.

I'm familiar with Perl, C and packaging and could work on packages with bugs or maybe lintian.

More collaborators on bugs in all our packages are always welcome!


Cheers,
gregor


[0] Some examples:

libastro-fits-cfitsio-perl/debian/patches/no-alien-cfitsio.patch libhtml-gumbo-perl/debian/patches/no-alien-libgumbo.patch libio-compress-brotli-perl/debian/patches/system-brotli.patch libmath-gmp-perl/debian/patches/no-alien.patch libmath-gsl-perl/debian/patches/no-alien-gsl.patch libpdl-transform-proj4-perl/debian/patches/proj-no-Alien.patch libtext-hunspell-perl/debian/patches/no-alien-hunspell.patch

--
.''`. https://info.comodo.priv.at -- Debian Developer https://www.debian.org
: :' : OpenPGP fingerprint D1E1 316E 93A7 60A8 104D 85FA BB3A 6801 8649 AA06
`. `' Member VIBE!AT & SPI Inc. -- Supporter Free Software Foundation Europe
`-

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQKTBAEBCgB9FiEE0eExbpOnYKgQTYX6uzpoAYZJqgYFAme2QgJfFIAAAAAALgAo aXNzdWVyLWZwckBub3RhdGlvbnMub3BlbnBncC5maWZ0aGhvcnNlbWFuLm5ldEQx RTEzMTZFOTNBNzYwQTgxMDREODVGQUJCM0E2ODAxODY0OUFBMDYACgkQuzpoAYZJ qgZnkg/+PenV+4QAZb6PVfBwAs81h8L+FBPdpQSFDpw3ivnYPfihT/qCTnd32upJ XoIvSHCm3cMEqGh9W92k4Y7Md7G+cfPiBMHgzTkGX8qHUXdHT+4BGOfdPTj+ofe2 5hdyLVboIZ9CzfL8CV18Lfaz/yDbpg6gOqnWSwdOnE/L19zwlocfx4nL187hb47e DggLBUl5Vg6LjCtk0/QadiiTpYcbY/cTxR6GgGREKZTTuHXHk2jhVRnF764XJ4mj VNYDVvefAuJ803yq9RPNE65Lc9XnEbeGbOZ0fr3zuEK9YUknJMLXDkqUvSz1vqSE KUp46KFOukOcgGi4HCOamYLtgv/8BZ77SqUaqSbmht0P8XpfieSyd5NgwVK7A8cu icNPswJ18eCwxcjDBPhfrdruqpE2TVJJl0q/9NScVfpXmz0NcY4akLoC4NCVLal1 XCCF7SX26ubz1UXWnxxuQoq9OitTJfl0ARMzS2JyKnFB0jVkxDDrPNWjFiKNICOe
HlnEFgZj

Hi,

Gregor Herrmann writes:

On Tue, 18 Feb 2025 13:05:59 +0100, Andreas Vögele wrote:

my Name is Andreas Vögele. I'm VOEGELAS on CPAN and voegelas on Salsa.
[...]
I'd like to package my Perl module IP::Geolocation::MMDB and its
prerequisite Alien::libmaxminddb.

[...] As a technical side note, in Debian we often go ahead without
packaging Alien::libfoo because we know that we have libfoo and we
can use libfoo-dev at buildtime (and we don't want to try and download something from the 'net anyway). Patching out the Alien::* stuff from Makefile.PL or Build.PL and setting LIB and INC either manually or
with the help of ExtUtils::PkgConfig is often trivial. [0]

That's really good advice. I've released a new version of
IP::Geolocation::MMDB that doesn't require patching. If
Alien::libmaxminddb isn't available, pkgconf is used.

Right now, I'm reading documents from https://perl-team.pages.debian.net/, >> but I'm not sure where to begin.  Should I create an RFP and wait for
approval or rejection? Should I ask to become a member of the Debian Perl
Group?

Depends on your aim:
- If you "just" want to get IP::Geolocation::MMDB into Debian,
packaged by someone else than an RFP (Request for Packaging (by
others)) bug is technically correct, but just asking here has the
same effect :)

Can you package IP::Geolocation::MMDB? That would be great. There are
updated "debian" files at https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:voegelas/perl-IP-Geolocation-MMDB that depend on pkgconf and libmaxminddb-dev instead of libalien-libmaxminddb-perl. The control file there suggests the packages dbip-asn-lite and dbip-country-lite, which aren't provided by Debian.

- If you want to package it yourself and maintain it in the future,
you should file an ITP bug (Intent to Package) and we
can add you to the team on salsa, where you can push a repo with
the source package, which one of us will review and eventually
upload.

I'm familiar with Perl, C and packaging and could work on packages with bugs >> or maybe lintian.

More collaborators on bugs in all our packages are always welcome!

I could package IP::Geolocation::MMDB myself, but I just realized that
trixie will be frozen soon. As far as I can see, I can start to work on
bugs without me immediately becoming a team member. On the other hand,
it has become increasingly difficult to get patches applied upstream as
some people have either retired or no longer use Perl. Do you work with
pull requests in GitLab on Salsa?

Kind regards,
Andreas

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025 17:41:56 +0100, Andreas Vögele wrote:

[...] As a technical side note, in Debian we often go ahead without packaging Alien::libfoo because we know that we have libfoo and we
can use libfoo-dev at buildtime (and we don't want to try and download something from the 'net anyway). Patching out the Alien::* stuff from Makefile.PL or Build.PL and setting LIB and INC either manually or
with the help of ExtUtils::PkgConfig is often trivial. [0]

That's really good advice. I've released a new version of IP::Geolocation::MMDB that doesn't require patching. If Alien::libmaxminddb isn't available, pkgconf is used.

Nice!

Right now, I'm reading documents from https://perl-team.pages.debian.net/,
but I'm not sure where to begin.  Should I create an RFP and wait for approval or rejection? Should I ask to become a member of the Debian Perl Group?

Depends on your aim:
- If you "just" want to get IP::Geolocation::MMDB into Debian,
packaged by someone else than an RFP (Request for Packaging (by
others)) bug is technically correct, but just asking here has the
same effect :)

Can you package IP::Geolocation::MMDB? That would be great. There are
updated "debian" files at https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:voegelas/perl-IP-Geolocation-MMDB
that depend on pkgconf and libmaxminddb-dev instead of libalien-libmaxminddb-perl. The control file there suggests the packages dbip-asn-lite and dbip-country-lite, which aren't provided by Debian.

And then there's also your git repo with similar files (but without pristine-tar and upstrean branches) …

I've now created a package
- from scratch with dh-make-perl using the CPAN tarball
- incorporating your work on debian/ files from your salsa repo
and the opensuse server
and pushed it to salsa:

https://salsa.debian.org/perl-team/modules/packages/libip-geolocation-mmdb-perl

Additionally I've filed an ITP bug:
https://bugs.debian.org/1098820

And I've uploaded libip-geolocation-mmdb-perl, which waits for
ftp-master approval in the NEW queue:
https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html
(will appear at some point)

Also I've added you to the perl team on salsa, as you are mentioned in Uploaders of this package - welcome :)

I could package IP::Geolocation::MMDB myself, but I just realized that
trixie will be frozen soon. As far as I can see, I can start to work on bugs without me immediately becoming a team member. On the other hand, it has become increasingly difficult to get patches applied upstream as some people have either retired or no longer use Perl.

Right, fixing bugs via patches in debian packages is fine if upstream
is inactive or unresponsive.

Do you work with pull requests in GitLab on Salsa?

Usually works, but if you're sure you can now also add files to
debian/patches directly in git.


Cheers,
gregor

--
.''`. https://info.comodo.priv.at -- Debian Developer https://www.debian.org
: :' : OpenPGP fingerprint D1E1 316E 93A7 60A8 104D 85FA BB3A 6801 8649 AA06
`. `' Member VIBE!AT & SPI Inc. -- Supporter Free Software Foundation Europe
`-

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQKTBAEBCgB9FiEE0eExbpOnYKgQTYX6uzpoAYZJqgYFAme8wh1fFIAAAAAALgAo aXNzdWVyLWZwckBub3RhdGlvbnMub3BlbnBncC5maWZ0aGhvcnNlbWFuLm5ldEQx RTEzMTZFOTNBNzYwQTgxMDREODVGQUJCM0E2ODAxODY0OUFBMDYACgkQuzpoAYZJ qgYCrA/9F3N/5Px2LoN6vf5bEGV4ATG4KAZsLKWZyJ9Jufz3H0uJp0hICg0gRq0O cTlWFgHpdXONMmaV9ObHbSgPwNYEClzgL5Jy9Sn84Ue6hBFLK9iy7KWJoB/vLguo Vt5kiAzrNsd9QYPaXqYv3bc8gPfKnzqZTS+FBu5Odn1iSh18n7tkarUYDqDczQ2e wVnoySxRsbVZWwGXxJDgR+RVmBOChu+GnHUHnnUr/qZDqnmibnX7BFerfgdaqEmg U8CvtNGYcAvyOaCQ6Uk1afBYgO+f7ROV4nPzs81gj3os22yYs1XtxydOEWl94/Qu P1wuiWVDrRikN1Q3cRiLyiXuz6pH61UGdh0Q16FQt9gNCp3JAG0JKgUJd7lUbclu /n9bu1QqzYaxHfhDkJwZ4vD93wib3T7UZznfPu9B3PnI9OEG4+qIXp1pOdALohXd odtMC2skw09SisPhHojlFqSV0wDHkuCo8Z9GaPUOvg9yptQs42IjmkTF+s3XQJo6
AA6g0qCB