Ubuntu PPAs with nightly and stable release packages

[rhansen]

Maintaining Ubuntu PPAs of nightly and stable release packages provides some benefits to the project:

• Users can easily install the latest version to get newer features. This encourages new contributions.
• Contributors can easily dogfood the latest changes to quickly uncover bugs.
• New changes will be tested by the PPA users before being widely released via official distribution packages.

I requested access to https://launchpad.net/ddclient so that I can set up "official" PPAs. If I understand correctly, we can set up Launchpad to automatically build new nightly packages and new stable release packages, so the maintenance burden should be low. I'm willing to take this on if nobody objects.

[SuperSandro2000]

@wimpunk @DaveSophoServices I would be totally for that if you have no objections.

[DaveSophoServices]

I wouldn’t object. Thank you Richard for the offer!

[wimpunk]

Me neither.
Any objections about giving @rhansen the acccess as the rest of the team?
Meanwhile I search for my lauchpad password.

[DaveSophoServices]

No objections.

[pappacena]

Hi! Thiago from Launchpad.net here.

Just to let you all know, we are transfering the ownership of ddclient project at Launchpad to rhansen, as requested at https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/690990 .

Let me know if you have any problem.

[rhansen]

Thank you Thiago!

I created a group for us; added myself, @SuperSandro2000, and @wimpunk to it; and set it as the maintainer for the project. @DaveSophoServices: let me know your Launchpad username (if you have one) and I'll add it to the group as well.

[wimpunk]

Great. Good work @rhansen. Btw, I've added you as a maintainer of the ddclient project.

[rhansen]

New Debian packaging is getting close to ready (see https://salsa.debian.org/debian/ddclient). I have submitted it to Debian devs (see https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=962159); they will review it and give me feedback. Once the dust settles I can start working on automating PPA builds.

[rhansen]

Packages for v3.9.1 are now available for all supported Ubuntu releases except for 16.04 (Xenial): https://code.launchpad.net/~ddclient/+archive/ubuntu/ppa. These packages are automatically built from the Debian package repository (https://salsa.debian.org/debian/ddclient), so whenever the Debian package repository changes the packages in the stable PPA will be automatically updated.

I'm still working on a Xenial stable package, and on daily packages.

[rhansen]

Daily builds are now set up: https://code.launchpad.net/~ddclient/+archive/ubuntu/daily
I haven't yet tried using that PPA, so it could be broken in horrible ways. But that's what daily builds are for, right? 😉
If you notice any problems, please let me know (you can open an issue here).

I gave up on building packages for Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial)—its debhelper version is too old and busted.