The best way forward on this is probably to contact Varun Hiremath and Torsten Werner, the package maintainers for Groovy and Gant, to see if they will add Gradle to their list.
As soon as the package gets into Debian it will filter into Ubuntu.
Marius Scurtescu's Ant task for creating Debian packages could be handy, I use it in Gant for creating packages that are available but are not used for the Debian and Ubuntu distributions.
I sent an email to Varun regarding this issue today.
It looks like Varun won't be able to help out for now because it would require
getting a few other things packaged in Debian to make it work:
- Ivy
- jopt-simple
- jetty6 (Torsten may be working on this. See: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=425152 )
- maybe others (not sure)
He suggested that the Gradle project:
- Look at the Debian package for gant: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-java/trunk/gant
- Collect dependencies required & their status (present/missing), like the JBoss folks did: JBoss http://wiki.debian.org/JBossPackaging
- File an RFP for whatever is missing: http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
It looks like ivy and jetty now have .deb packages,
but jopt-simple still does not.
It as announced that jopt-simple was recently added to OpenJDK:
http://cleveralias.blogs.com/thought_spearmints/2009/03/jopt-simple-incorporated-into-openjdk.html
I'm not clear on what that means in terms of packaging.
Anybody know more about this?
Can't add any more data on things, but I wanted to say that Gradle must not rely on things that are in OpenJDK and not in Sun JDK unless the dependency is trivially resolvable by the user.
I'm interested in package gradle for Debian, but I need a way to build it without using the jar file (gradle-wrapper.jar) included in the sources. In Debian, all packages must build from the sources. Any ideas or comments about how this can be achieved?
The Gradle build can be bootstrapped using gradle-wrapper. Then, when the package is built locally, it can be changed to use itself to build.
There is, theoretically speaking, no problem in having a circular build-dependency in Debian. It is quite common for compilers, gcc for example.
Please be aware that I already prepared a Debian package for 0.9-rc-1 version. I will update it to 0.9-rc-2 and ask for review soon. Since Debian is in development freeze right now, realistically speaking this package would be available in Debian on early 2011.
Today Damien Raude-Morvan uploaded the Gradle package that I prepared to the Debian archive. http://ftp-master.debian.org/new/gradle_0.9.1-1.html
It should be available soon. If somebody is interested in test it on Debian or Ubuntu, just let me know.
I run both Debian (Testing) and Ubuntu and would be happy to try things out. For Debian I normally I just wait for things to percolate from Debian Unstable to Debian Testing, but Squeeze is currently in freeze so I guess nothing newly entered into Unstable will percolate. For Ubuntu I guess there is a PPA for putting latest Ubuntu packages?
Ubuntu 10.10, count me in
As Russel said, because of the freeze is not so easy to test it right now because some dependencies are in the experimental repo and others are in the NEW queue (e.g. gradle itself), so the easy thing is just wait several weeks if you are patient.
Anyway, if you want to test it:
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/gradle_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-core-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-plugins-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
These are some dependencies needed:
http://packages.debian.org/experimental/all/checkstyle/download
http://packages.debian.org/experimental/all/libgoogle-collections-java/download
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libjsr305-java_0.1~+svn49-1_all.deb
And these are some recommended Gradle plugin packages and documentation:
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-announce-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-antlr-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-code-quality-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-eclipse-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-idea-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.debç
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-jetty-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-maven-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-osgi-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-scala-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/libgradle-wrapper-java_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
http://alioth.debian.org/~nomadium-guest/debian/unstable/gradle-doc_0.9.1-0miguel1_all.deb
Among the tests that I did I build Gradle with itself and Grails.
The Debian Squeeze freeze is now over; Squeeze is now Stable and the new Testing is Wheezy. Will these packages now migrate automatically into Testing?
I am guessing it is now too late to get things into Ubuntu 11.04 Nattay Narwhal?
All the dependencies for Gradle are available in unstable. However, Gradle package is still at NEW queue. I expect to see it accepted soon (probably March).
I'm not that expert with Ubuntu but I guess it is already too late to get it into Ubuntu 11.04.
Is this still valid? Just noticed that apt-get install gradle works...
The issue right now is that gradle Debian package is outdated. I had not enough time lately to work on it but contributors are more than welcome. 
Miguel,
I am now running Debian Unstable, if you can set me up with the package building framework that is needed, I can probably help out by running trial packagings of Groovy, Gant, Gradle, GPars, GroovyFx (once JavaFx is allowed into Debian), and possibly Grails so as to speed things up for you.
As announced on the Gradle blog we are planning to completely migrate issues from JIRA to GitHub.
We intend to prioritize issues that are actionable and impactful while working more closely with the community. Many of our JIRA issues are inactionable or irrelevant. We would like to request your help to ensure we can appropriately prioritize JIRA issues you’ve contributed to.
Please confirm that you still advocate for your JIRA issue before December 10th, 2016 by:
- Checking that your issues contain requisite context, impact, behaviors, and examples as described in our published guidelines.
- Leave a comment on the JIRA issue or open a new GitHub issue confirming that the above is complete.
We look forward to collaborating with you more closely on GitHub. Thank you for your contribution to Gradle!
Thanks again for reporting this issue. We haven't heard back from you after our inquiry from November 15th. We are closing this issue now. Please create an issue on GitHub if you still feel passionate about getting it resolved.