Hi all,
So as we discussed a while back[1], the plan is to re-package Foreman
properly for the eventual 1.4 release. We tested the new Jenkins jobs[2,3]
for building gems out of our packaging repo[4] by packaging Kafo and
Hammer, and it seems like we're good to go.
The next step is to start building the gems that Foreman relies upon - we
have a starting list in the form of the RPM dependencies/specs[5]. We also
need a new Jenkins job to attempt to build Foreman without vendoring
(probably from a dedicated branch of foreman-packaging, for now). I can
arrange that next week I think.
A few people have approached me wondering how to help (which is totally
awesome, thanks guys!) - we need a way to track who is working on what. We
currently have a spreadsheet on Google Docs[6] but I suspect that may get
messy with 3-4 people building gems for 3 different distros. We'll give it
a try, and see how it goes. Email me off-list if you want to write-access
to the sheet.
Once we have proper native packages for the gems and for
Foreman/Proxy/Installer (Installer is already there I think), we can see
what further changes we need to make to bring them into line with the
Debian Guidelines.
Should be fun 
Greg
[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/foreman-dev/76A7LmuPzLM
[2]
http://ci.theforeman.org/view/Packaging/job/packaging_build_deb_coreproject/
[3]
http://ci.theforeman.org/view/Packaging/job/packaging_build_deb_dependency/
[4] https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-packaging/tree/deb/develop/debian
[5]
https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-packaging/tree/master/rpms/fedora-19
[6]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhcK94BNB5PedG1KT3pvY3ZVbXRybUwyRkNLeldNcWc&usp=sharing