On Wed, 15 Jun 2022 11:08:59 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Helmut Grohne writes ("Re: Bug#1007717: Updated draft resolution"):
> > Simon looked at how other distributions approach patches and figured
> > that basically everyone else uses the patches-unapplied model.
> patches-unapplied is a good fit for distro experts in distros which
> are still using tarballs-and-patches.
And that's what we are talking about: Debian experts building
packages for Debian. At least that's what my priorities are.
> (IME most Debian insiders severly underestimate the scale of the
> problems faced by a random user who is already a programmer and just
> wants to make some change to a package.)
That's very well possible, but I think we shouldn't prioritize these
"random users who know git but not Debian packaging".
Taking a step back: I think all those idiosyncrasies and the need to
learn weird things to build packages and the impossibility to Just
Use Git are a sad thing and bad for anyone involved. But we won't fix
these problems by adding yet another layer of workarounds and
indirection; unless we can address the problem at its root this will
all be futile.
> Happily, it is possible to reconcile the disagreement about applied vs
> unapplied by automatically converting. dgit, and Sean and my
> tag2upload system, do precisely this, in the "forward" direction,
> which is the most important one.
tag2upload sounds great indeed.
Just that it needs to be accepted at the archive level, i.e. by the
FTPmasters. Until then it's unfortunately "a nice idea". So more
technical work or more advice by the TC won't help in any way.
And dgit also is just a nice workaround for the problem that the
canonical source of Debian packages is not Git repo; it pretends that
there is, and it stumbles across all kinds of corner cases caused by
how source packages look like nowadays.
This is not a criticism of tag2upload or dgit; quite to the contrary
I think that they identify real problems. But they just create
additional layers and try to create workarounds. And that's all they
can do without further (political) changes.
Back to the topic of this bug report: The TC was asked for advice
about source formats (and patch systems), and as their resolution
can't change how the archive works, I very much agree with Helmut
that more uniformity and less pathogenic packages are indeed very
helpful.
And if we want to change the source package basics themselves: Yay,
but that's a different question at a different level.
Cheers,
gregor
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