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Debian/Ubuntu Games Team Policy
Please read the team's general guidelines at
This page consists of inofficial good practices, recommendations and common work flows regarding the packaging of games within the Games Team. If you have questions, please feel free to ask them on the list or on IRC.
creating new packages
All games should have desktop files and icons. See also JessieReleaseGoal
- Bonus-ponies for translations and useful comments.
- Libraries do not need desktop files
- There should be no “pwd” occurrences in debian/rules. Depending on the context, that can cause FTBFSes. $(CURDIR) is preferable.
$PWD is worse than pwd, as I understand it? --SimonMcVittie
debian/control must have a Homepage field linking to the upstream homepage (if any) and Vcs-* fields linking to pkg-games VCS. If the original upstream website went offline, it is encouraged to create a new wiki page like Games/Jester or use the one from tracker.debian.org.
The package must be in a Git repository as part of the Games Team on Salsa, and must contain at least a debian/ directory.
making changes to existing packages
Changing/updating all packages is encouraged. - not only your own
- Changes should not be frivolous. (Changing the build-system, patch-system, VCS, etc). However if the package seems to be abandoned (no commits for years) this might be even a good idea. If you are unsure talk to us.
- Updating to the latest debhelper version is considered fine.
- Not yet ready packages should have UNRELEASED in debian/changelog.
- Packages targeted at experimental should state so as the first entry in the changelog.
- Packages with unstable/experimental in debian/changelog are ready-to-upload.
uploading packages
- Uploaded packages should be tagged in the VCS after the upload.
- In the case of a sponsored upload the sponsoring DD should tag (if he is part of pkg-games).
Ready-to-upload packages can be found in PET, in the sponsors queue and in DMD
Set the Maintainer field to "Debian Games Team <pkg-games-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>" and add yourself to the Uploaders field.
guidelines for packaging game engines
Based on the precedent of quakespasm, the line currently drawn by the ftpmasters is that engines as cube2 or quakespasm can go in main without Free data also being in main, as long as usable Free data exists.
- Always try to ensure that you find or provide free data, so that the engine can go to main.
- An incomplete but usable demo package which demonstrates core features of the engine is desirable and always better than having no free content at all. See the cube2-data package for an example.
- If absolutely no free data exists, please document what has to be done to create it, so that future contributors can work on the problem.
pkg-games lintian checks
Someone needs to implement a check for our Games/JessieReleaseGoal. See also 720370.
usertags
Please use user pkg-games-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org with usertag wnpp for team-related ITP/ITA and other WNPP bugs. This is so that we can track our progress integrating new games.
Please use user pkg-games-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org with usertag desktop-integration for bug reports related to our Games/JessieReleaseGoal and also add usertag goals.
Please use user debian-devel-games@lists.debian.org with usertag party-<type>-<date> (for eg usertag party-screenshots-2012-02-26) for bug reports related to our work parties.