Re: RFS: mobile-broadband-provider-info (updated package)
On 11/23/11, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Bhavani Shankar R wrote:
>> Regarding watch file I'm a bit skeptical as its a package which has
>> regular commits upstream and requires frequent updation of the package
>> in the archives I think personally and using the ftp site for the
>> tarball location in watch file could lead to confusions with the
>> versions in the archive. And if the watch file is removed lintian
>> throws up error. So Antii (marked in CC) can pitch in I guess.
>
> This is why I think packaging it at all is possibly a bad idea since
> people running Debian stable/oldstable will always have old
> information. It would be better if the software that uses it were to
> be responsible for downloading it periodically.
[Kerrect speeling note: Instead of "updation of", I probably would
have written "updates [of/to]".]
Wouldn't this combination of factoids [(1) that the package has
regular commits upstream of important data contained within the
package, (2) that the package therefore needs to be frequently updated
to get the new data from upstream incorporated into the package, and
(3) that these updates need to be made available to people running
Debian stable and oldstable without requiring those people to install
a version of this package from testing or unstable] therefore suggest
that this package is a candidate for debian-volatile (or whatever that
is called these days)? I've been subscribing to the applicable Debian
announcement mailing list (debian-volatile-announce@lists.d.o) for a
little while now, and I see mention of updates to tzdata and clamav.
Looking at http://lists.debian.org/debian-volatile-announce/2011/msg00000.html
, I guess it's now called squeeze-updates, not debian-volatile.
However, the point still stands: "This suite will contain updates that
satisfy one of the following criteria: [...] * The package in question
is a data package and the data must be updated in a timely manner
(e.g. tzdata)."
As for if there should be a watch file, or what the watch file should
be if there should be one at all, that I do not know. (Is there a
facility / capability yet for watching for changes to a git / bzr / hg
/ svn / cvs / etc archive, and should that facility be used instead
for this package instead of watching a (relatively) static tarball
file if the facility is available for use?)
Thanks for your time. Hope this is of some use, interest.
Joseph
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