Bug#830978: Browserified javascript and DFSG 2
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> Now I'm confused as to how we handled Perl (#762638). It has a
> Configure script that claims[2] to be generated by a
> configure-generator called metaconfig. A significant part of
> metaconfig's job (like grunt's) is concatenating snippets, but there
> are some generated parts (e.g. the variable lists[3]). Neither
> metaconfig nor the sources for Configure reside in any Debian
> package[4]. Contrary to their claims[5], upstream doesn't[6] even take
> patches when they hit the generated parts.
This certainly looks similar, and my gut reaction is that perl's
Configure doesn't meet our requirements for source in Debian either.
> What is it that makes us treat it differently? Lower popcon?
To some extent, yes. There's also the case that the Configure isn't
actually part of the binary that is distributed, and can be patched
separately, which mitigates the issue of not actually distributing
source and carrying around an embedded copy somewhat.
I certainly think that both of these are issues that should be fixed...
but I'm sympathetic to the idea that we can't kick everything out of the
archive, and that some issues of source are bugs that we can release
with, and some issues of source are bugs that we cannot release with.
[And now that enough people have read this thread, we probably could
have re-implemented grunt by now and solved the libjs-handlebars
problem.]
--
Don Armstrong https://www.donarmstrong.com
It can sometimes happen that a scholar, his task completed, discovers
that he has no one to thank. Never mind. He will invent some debts.
Research without indebtedness is suspect, and somebody must always,
somehow, be thanked.
-- Umberto Eco "How to Write an Introduction"
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