Re: loginutils package, etc.

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Bruce Perens writes ("loginutils package, etc."):
> > miscutils and loginutils will be based on sources taken from several
> > different packages, among them admutils, util-linux, and bsd.
> 
> Please do not make any packages that contain sources from more than
> one upstream package. Please make a separate Debian package for each
> upstream package.

I disagree.  I think that you're right in general, but in this case it
makes more sense for us to amalgamate the source packages and pick the
right bits of each for every binary package.

>   When in doubt, please split packages into smaller
> ones rather than making big packages.

I'm not sure I agree with this.  We have 350 packages in the devel
tree atm ...

>   It's a good idea sometimes for
> a source package to generate several binary packages so that it is
> easy to subset or replace portions.

This is true.

> > I'm sure there are other packages that take their sources from
> > different places.
> 
> Maybe so, but these should be split up.

This can be quite hard to do.  Sometimes they even need access to each
other's build areas ...

Ian.