On Thu, 2024-05-30 at 23:20 +0100, Bruce Horrocks wrote:
> I'd be able to maintain a Context PPA but there already seems to be
> one:
> <https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/context>

I think that's just the source used in Ubuntu. This is called a "source
package" in the Debian parlance:

   https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html

But if you click the "Other versions of 'context' in untrusted
archives" at the bottom of the page it will show you PPAs. There
appears to be three, all of which are ancient.

Just so you know, Ubuntu source packages are just Debian source
packages, but often with some downstream patches. The Debian source
package is what ends up in endless distros.

Probably most lay users who use ConTeXt outside of building from a
tarball or putting somewhere outside of the FHS are using some Debian
distro derivative's package via:

   $ sudo apt install context

Unless the Debian package is updated, usually downstream derivative
distros won't update their own. For that reason if you want to affect
the most change for the most users it's best to do so here:

   https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/context

Over a hundred distros just recycle the above source package and its
resulting binaries.

Usually Debian is slow to update their packages, depending on who is
assigned as package maintainer. Because of that, this is part of the
reason why PPAs are popular because they shorten the time for lay users
to try the new version without having to fiddle with paths, tarballs,
etc.

Once you have a PPA up, to build binary packages the builder does the
same as the ones used by the Debian project. You upload a Debian source
package and it will then go and build and test the resulting binary
packages. After that it injects them into the APT repository (which is
all a PPA is).

-- 
Kip Warner
OpenPGP signed/encrypted mail preferred
https://www.thevertigo.com