Arnaud Rebillout

Docker & Go packaging, an overview of the challenges

Over the last months, I’ve been trying to package an up-to-date version of Docker for Debian.

I started this task with only a rough knowledge of Debian packaging. I discovered Go from zero, and especially the development practices in use by the Golang community. I got in touch with the Debian Go packaging team, and learned a lot more about Debian packaging tools, infrastructure, and practices.

In this 20 minutes talk, I would like to provide some feedback on this experience, things I learnt and would like to share to an audience that might not be familiar with the issues faced by the Go packaging team. In short:

• what is the difference between the Docker package provided by docker.com, and the package provided by Debian?
• what makes Docker, and more generally Go, packaging difficult?

The audience would be people interested in Go packaging, and wanting a quick, simple presentation of the challenges. Or people wondering why the Debian Docker package lags behind. Or Go packagers curious about the feedback from a newcomer.