Re: Bug reports, patches and other stuff
In article <[🔎] 19970911214124.12466@snowball.ucd.ie> you wrote:
: The big problem is master itself, rejecting uploads that do not contain
: proper .orig.tar.gz and .diff.gz files.
Hmmm. It's quite possible to make binary-only uploads with a suitable changes
file. I posted the correct arguments for the package building tools a while
back, I can dig them up again if they'd be helpful. You can even do a
non-maintainer upload including a new .diff.gz if your changes are
conditionalized so that they don't break other architectures. The community
of maintainers is somewhat divided about the appropriateness of this, but I'm
all in favor of getting the work done... and if the primary maintainer isn't
actively working on the package, my experience is that they're usually happy
to see this happen.
Frankly, I admit to never having lost much sleep about uploading an alpha
.deb that contained patches that weren't reflected in the .orig.tar.gz and
.diff.gz provided by the primary maintainer, *if and only if* I'd submitted
the diffs as a bug report against the package, so that they were available
to the upstream maintainer and to others who might want to rebuild the
package. I indicated on debian-devel months ago that I was doing this, and
articulated the alternative of architecture-specific diffs to a rousing
silence, so I decided that this was a reasonable compromise between what I
think is *right* and what I can do with the tools and processes available.
: Well, if there was a pseudopackage "alpha-port" in the bug
: tracking system, it could likely serve this purpose.
The notion of pseudo-packages for each port to cover architecture-specific
issues is something I hadn't thought about before. Neat idea. I'm going to
let it stir around in my head a bit, and if it doesn't curdle, I'll propose
it.
: I completely agree. The problem is that significant part of the Alpha
: port is done by people who aren't Debian developers and probably do not
: strongly intend to become. They just want to set their systems up and
: running.
I understand this, I just haven't understood why folks who were willing to do
good work and share it weren't interested in becoming registered developers.
You've helped to clarify that it isn't an issue of intent, but of the process
that is involved in signing up. Now that I understand, I'll go ask a few
pointed questions as a long-time Debian maintainer about the new maintainer
process and see if I can do something about it, short of volunteering to take
it on myself, which would be a disaster... :-)
: Neither do I want to spend enormous amounts of time on word wars.
:-)
Back to hacking...
Bdale
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