Re: texlive-basic_2005-1_i386.changes REJECTED
Hi Jörg, hi ftpmasters!
(I take in debian-devel and debian-tetex-maint)
I want to add some comments and questions:
First, genesis of TeX live for Debian. This probably/hopefully answers
"the big ?" of you: Following the ITP #312897 there was quite a bit of
discussion on debian-devel on the topic why to include another TeX
distribution, especially one that big.
(ITP: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/06/msg00970.html)
There it is also stated that although TeX live is also a Live TeX
distribution, it is also one of the most complete TeX system currently
available. Furthermore it has the advantage that it is already split
into smaller packages. Frank Küster, the maintainer of teTeX packages,
summed up the advantages of having TeX live in Debian, explaining why it
should be included (see
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/06/msg01103.html).
The package splitting strategy was developed in cooperation with the TeX
live upstream maintainers (via the texlive@tug.org ml), and the teTeX
maintainers (starting in late 2004 beginning of 2005):
http://lists.debian.org/debian-tetex-maint/2005/01/msg00228.html
It boils down to the following: In TeX live upstream there are packages
(called tpm - tex package management) for each single package from CTAN.
These tpms are grouped together in areas of interest called
`collections'. In the discussion on the package split policy we came to
the conclusion that it is not feasable to make one debian package from
one tpm, that would be around 1000+ different packages. So we decided to
go for transforming collections into debian packages.
Now for your comments:
On Son, 27 Nov 2005, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> Looking at the texlive packages in NEW I have some comments for you,
> leaving alone my big ? why one wants to include basically a ctan mirror
> in debian / dupe many things with tetex, instead of simply putting more
> man-power/work into tetex if its not modular enough.
See Franks comment above. Or: How many users of TeX packages have to go
through the difficult process of installing packages by hand from the
CTAN archive only to see that it is not working. It is not a completely
trivial task, even for experienced sysadmins. To have a more or less
complete TeX system in Debian is not a useless addition, it helps those
working with TeX and more than the set included in teTeX.
> Looking at what I know from texlive its intended as a live thingie for
> users to play/start with tex? Is there such a huge userbase for this to
No. Definitely not. Please see the web pages of texlive:
http://www.tug.org/texlive. It is used on a wide range of platforms and
operating systems, and normally is installed. It is *not* primary a live
system (although the name suggests this).
> Im also not really happy with the current packaging, starting with the too
> heavy split of (source) packages.
Ok, this can be dealt with. I thought it would be better to have a
strict relation between source and bin packages, but where it was not
possible.
> For example there are 19 documentation source packages, all building one
> binary. Better merge them into one texlive-source and build the
> different binary packages out of that one. You are left with 47 sources.
>
> Similar things can be said for the language packs, merge the *27* to one
> and built the binaries out of that. Down to 21 sources. :)
Ok, this is no problem. The .orig.tar.gz will be bigger, but I can merge
the source packages without any problem.
> Also I *suggest* to add a - after lang, so it reads lang-FOO, which is
> *IMO* easier. (Well, for all packages which dont have the additional -).
The reason behind this decision was to have the package name reflecting
the collection name, so that people using TeX live and using Debian see
(+-) the same names.
> as you do now with 65. Yes, that makes the orig-tarballs bigger, but I
> dont think thats so much of a problem here.
Ok, will do this.
> allrunes dfsg
>
> Please: Tell me its not true that the DFSG is used as a license there.
As stated in the License file, this list was generated from the TeX
Catalogue, which *can be wrong*! If you check the actual allrunes files,
you see that it is LPPL.
So for the further proceeding:
I will generate a new set of .orig.tar.gz etc with a new source packages
splitting scheme, trying to reduce the source packages as much as
possible.
Here a question: Theoretically I can make only *ONE* source package.
That would make *many* *many* things *much* more easier. But, this would
be rather big a .orig.tar.gz. In my understanding of the packaging
process this is not what is wished, but please correct me!
Especially I don't see the advantage of having such a big source
package, fixes always would force a big rebuild of everything.
For the package names I would prefer staying at the current names, as
the relate to the TeX live collection names. But if ftpmasters would not
accept, I will change.
What further steps are necessary to get the OK from the ftpmasters?
Best wishes
Norbert
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