The Debian project has begun testing the Debusine system, which allows the creation of custom repositories through which newer versions of software can be distributed, preliminary testing of packages can be conducted, or additional packages that do not fit the standard Debian repositories can be hosted. Debusine is presented as Debian's equivalent of the PPA (Personal Package Archive) repositories used in Ubuntu. The project is led by Colin Watson, who has previously been part of the technical committees for Debian and Ubuntu and has worked on the Launchpad service, the Ubuntu installer, and the Upstart initialization system.
Debusine is expected to be useful for Debian developers for separately testing packages on real systems before transferring changes to the main repository. For example, when fixing an issue in a package, a developer can use Debusine so that affected users can test the fix in advance. Debusine can also be used by projects that wish to distribute multiple versions of software simultaneously or those that do not meet the Debian requirements for packages in the main repositories.
When publishing packages, Debusine offers functionality for conducting QA testing, and there are plans to introduce tools for tracking regressions (currently in development). There is the capability to verify packages against digital signatures using keys tied to the repositories. Packages are built with respect to the current contents of the Debusine repository as well as the corresponding release of Debian. An integrated system for automatic snapshot creation is available across all repositories.
Debusine has been launched for testing. server debusine.debian.net, where the ability to publish packages is currently provided only to Debian developers and maintainers with an account on Salsa. The tools debusine-client and dput-ng can be used for publishing packages. Packages can be hosted on debusine.debian.net if their licensing conditions meet Debian's requirements.
Source: opennet.ru
