Re: source packaging
Bill Mitchell writes:
>On Sat, 9 Sep 1995, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> Clearly I'm missing something obvious.
>
>Or perhaps I am. I reacted to jdassen's suggestion for a debianizing
>script with an alternative (flawed, and later refined in response to
>helpful criticism)
>
>It seems to me as if we should get to a scheme where the
>source-rebuilder (perhaps not the maintainer who prepared the package
>but a user rebuilding it for his own purposes) doesn't need to worry
>whether it's a new-style or old-style package to rebuild it. He'd go
>through the same steps in either case. That way, old-style and
>new-style packages could gracefully coexist during a transition
>period.
Fair enough; though if we're going to change things the primary
objective should be to make them better - a graceful change over is an
important but ultimately secondary objective.
If we don't find an easy way of doing this perhaps we should put
`debian' or `orig' in the name of both old-style and new-style source
archives so that it's perfectly clear just from the filename what's
what (which is nearly as good as making the changeover transparent).
We can reconsider this when the majority of source packages have
changed.
Since the diffs haven't changed, I think it's counterintuitive to
change their name.
>> >2. Change the build target to use the ../.dpatches.gz file to
>>
>> Making assumptions about the location of the patch file may be
>> probably a bad move?
>
>Shorthand. take the "../" to mean the directory above the
>directory into which the source package is unpacked.
Err, yes, isn't that precisely an assumption about the location of the
patch file, i.e. that it's located in a particular place wrt the
unpacked source?
On the one hand, I think we can rely on anyone who wants to tinker
with the source knowing how to apply a patch themselves - in fact I'd
have thought that applying some kind of patch is going to be a common
reason for looking at the source at all.
On the other hand, it seems like an unreasonable imposition for them
to have to do it at all...
>The group has worked well in this mode in the past, with back&forth
>discussion converging quickly on a workable plan.
I'm still somewhat against the idea of changing at all, on the grounds
that what we're supplying is the source to Debian, not the source to a
bunch of unrelated programs. This objection is more aesthetic than
technical ;-)
--
Richard Kettlewell <URL:http://www.elmail.co.uk/staff/richard/>
Work+home: <richard@elmail.co.uk>
Home only: <richard@sfere.elmail.co.uk>
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