Re: Subpackaging (Was: Potato now stable)
Edward Betts writes:
> Possible layout
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<snippage>
I like the plan a lot. some thoughts:
> doc/examples.tar.gz /usr/share/doc/examples/*
> locale/*/gettext.tar.gz gettext translations
I wonder if the default docs should not go in a locale/ subdir for the
proper language (English for most of what exists now). I know very
little about i18b so I won't comment on the implementation. This does
have this advantages of:
(a) not appearing to be English-centric
(b) allowing for a package whose upstream docs are entirely in a
different language (while most non-English-speaking authors also
know some English or are fluent in it, many may not).
> doc.tar.gz docs not in packages below (includes copyright)
> copyright copy of copyright or symlink to common-licence
I don't really get the reason for duplicating copyright. See below.
> dists/unstable/main/binary-*/admin/at_3.1.8-10.deb
>
> to looking like this:
>
> dists/main/admin/at/*
This is good. Something I brought up before was moving the package
metadata (except for a list of timestamps) from a monolithic Packages
file to where the individual packages are, which would be even easier
here. Does anyone have any comments on that?
> The user could selected a more detailed screen in dselect,
> or use command line switches with apt-get to select the subpackages to be
> installed or not installed.
As well as /etc/apt/apt.conf options (for example, a systemwide
default of no documentation).
> For an even more compact system each executable and library in the package
> could be split into a separate subpackage, but means we tend to lose some of
> the benefits of the packaging system, and just have a load of files.
This is probably overkill.
> We are breaking the rules on copyright at the moment. We distribute
> binaries licensed under the GPL without a copy of the GPL.
I disagree. We distribute base-files on the same server.
> Packages that provide the same documentation in different formats do not
> always include the same documents in the different formats, but instead
> different documents are included in different formats. An example might be
> useful:
>
> Not: README, README.html and README.ps
>
> But: README, manual.html and specification.ps
IMHO, doc-$FORMAT should only apply if the same documentation is built
in different formats. There should be one 'doc' tarball for
documentation which comes in a single format, and 'doc-*' or 'doc/*'
for the multiple case (and then none of those files should be in the
base 'doc'.)
> What happens when a user selects to install binary-i386 and binary-m68k
> packages?
I don't see a reason to allow this; is there one?
--
There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY. There
are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong. -- BSD fortune(6)
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