On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 06:23:12PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> writes:To me, "Source:" contains origins. Makes sense to me for that field to be mandatory and only contain URLs.I would like an optional field indicating that our redistribute as the "source" (rather than our "overlay" part in the form of either a patch or (with dpkg source format 3.0) an additional tarball) is not pristine but have been created or tampered with by us - even if in fact based on those upstream sources stated in "Source:".It seems like overkill to me, but I guess I don't really care. But if the source is only URLs, then for some of my packages I either need to omit it or duplicate Homepage, since I don't use any tarball release from upstream and therefore have no URL to point to. I package a Git tag instead, for which there's no URL syntax.Or I guess just include the URL of the upstream instructions on how to use Git.
In my opinion you should as accurately as possible point to the location of the upstream source, i.e. refer to the upstream Git URL if that is the one you base your packaging work on, and only to the toplevel Homepage of the upstream code project if no other more narrow URL for sources (e.g. if each new source release is in a different subfolder). Source URLs need not be http URLs, I believe.
Perhaps "Source-Manipulation:" better describes what I would want such field to cover: Even if content not machine-parsable, it is still machine-parsable if that field exists, flagging this source package as redistributing non-pristine "source" tarballs.But that field name also isn't an accurate representation of what's going on when the packaging is based on a Git tag. No manipulation is involved other than running git archive against a tag.
Point is _you_ ran that command, not upstream. So _you_ created the tarball that Debian redistributes, not upstream.
True, you did not edit any of the content of any individual files inside the tarball, but you did edit the _tarball_ content: You created all the timestamps in there, for example.
I find it relevant that we document when what we redistribute is not what upstream distributes. In your case upstream distributes Git data which we do not (yet) support redistributing. So it makes sense to me that you document that for our users. Optionally - it is not mandatory to document that.
- Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature