Re: Source package format - a simple proposal
On Sat, 9 Dec 1995, Ian Murdock wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Nov 1995, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
> > From: Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>
> > > 6a. No unnecessary up/down-loading by maintainers.
> >
> > Is this such a big issue? With your overseas FTP problems you can judge
> > that, but I'd feel more confident if the maintainer uploaded the entire
> > package as one piece.
>
> I agree. I think that providing patches only would be a bad idea,
> for reasons that have already been described here. I am strongly
> of the opinion that we should provide source packages in an
> easily-rebuildable form, without the need to apply patches and such.
>
> I like Ian Jackson's proposal.
I liked it too. To recap what was proposed:
+ foo-1.2-5.debian-diff
+ foo-1.2.orig/foo.c
+ /foo.h
+ &c
This would be contained in a tarfile or somesuch.
(actually, I'd rather see foo-1.2-5.debian-diff and
foo-1.2.orig.tgz, but I'm not religious about that)
foo-1.2-5.debian-diff would contain debianizing patches for
the pristine upstream upstream sources which follow, with
the patches being applied mechanically during unpacking of
the debian source package. For debian-originated packages,
foo-1.2-<whatever>.debian.diff might be a required component
which could be empty of diffs, or might be optional (both
alternatives have been mentioned).
As regards the 6a question, it seems that the foo-1.2 package
maintainer could upload foo-1.2-6.debian-diff, and processing
on the distribution site could upgrade the foo-1.2-5 source
package to foo-1.2-6 by replacing the diff component. Users
would always download a complete package containing pristine
upstream sources and debian-release-numbered debianizing
diffs, with diffs to be mechanically applied on the user's
machine during unpacking to produce debianized sources.
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