Handling of GnuWin32 source packages

[Volker Grabsch <vog@notjusthosting.com>]

Dear Debian Mentors,

I'm trying to build Debian cross compiled packages of win32 libraries.
As upstream sources I use the (already patched) sources from the
GnuWin32 project. (http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/)

Their source packages are named this way:
    libpng-1.2.8-src.zip

and this ZIP archive has the following structure:

    manifest/
        [some files containing meta information]
    src/
        libpng/
            1.2.8/
                libpng-1.2.8/
                (libpng-1.2.8-src/)
                    [sources]

Sadly, they are not very consistent, so I'll have to inspect some
more packages to get right. However, I'm sure the unpacking and
patching can be automated mostly.


There are in general three ways to proceed now:

1) create a wellformed *.orig.tar.gz using something like:

    unzip libpng-1.2.8-src.zip
    [do some extra work with src/...]
    GZIP=-9 tar -cz -f ...orig.tar.gz -C src/libpng/1.2.8/

2) leave the directory structure intact and just repack the ZIP file:

    unzip libpng-1.2.8-src.zip
    GZIP=-9 tar -cz -f ...orig.tar.gz src/ manifest/

   and do the "necessary work" within debian/rules.

3) put the zip file into ...orig.tar.gz:

    GZIP=-9 tar -cz -f ...orig.tar.gz libpng-1.2.8-src.zip

   and do any unpacking and "necessary work" within debian/rules.
   (The zlib Debian package does something similar)


Which of these ways is the current, modern, best practise way of
handling such exotic source archives?

Is there any documentation about this specific way?

The "Debian New Maintainers' Guide" explicitly says that it doesn't
cover this topic. The "Debian Developer's Reference" has one interesting
chapter "Best practices for orig.tar.gz files"

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-best-pkging-practices.en.html#s-bpp-origtargz

This covers "Repackaged upstream source", but it's very vague. It
doesn't say much about my three ways.


Personally, I like the way 3) at most, because it directly uses the
upstream zip files. If I do so, may I then leave the required
"README.Debian-source"?

The Debian zlib source package is created in the spirit of 3), using
the following source directory layout:

    debian/
        [...]
    upstream/
        tarballs/
            zlib-1.2.2.tar.gz

Although they use a "repacked source", they didn't provide a
README.Debian-source. Are there exceptions from that rule?


Greets,

    Volker

-- 
Volker Grabsch
---<<(())>>---
Administrator
NotJustHosting GbR