Re: Binary-only packages
In article <[🔎] Pine.LNX.3.91.960528164633.164B-100000@thevoid.ntplx.net> Doug Geiger <runexe@ntplx.net> writes:
> On Tue, 28 May 1996, Sven Rudolph wrote:
>
> > When you are not allowed to distribute the binary version the decision
> > is quite easy (as for the netscape package): The source package onyl
> > contains the debian.* files, as does the binary package. The original
> > binary archive has to be available at installation time.
>
> We are allowed to distribute the binary (I don't think it even has to go
> in the non-free - though I may have read the license incorrectly), we
> just don't have access to the source.
While the guidelines don't mention this case I don't like to see
binary-only packages in the regular distribution. An important part of
the Debian notion of free, the availability of source code, isn't
given; therefore I suggest to put your package into non-free.
(Once we reached a sufficient consensus on this additional notion of
non-free this should be added to the packaging guidelines.)
(Someone else mentioned using contrib instead of non-free but IMHO
this doesn't fit into contrib.)
>From the guidelines:
`contrib' is an archive of user-contributed packages that are not
maintained by the Project, packages that were once maintained by the
Project but that are no longer actively maintained, and packages that
are maintained by the Project but that are not yet considered ready for
inclusion in the distribution proper (i.e., ALPHA and BETA packages).
As above, all submissions for inclusion in the `contrib' archive *must*
be freely redistributable.
> Currently I've only released a
> binary package, I'm wondering if I should release a source package, and
> if so - what do I put in it? The binary and debian.* so that someone can
> make a binary package? (Though I don't see why - one is already available)
I think you should release a source package containing only the
scripts necessary to build the binary package and a pointer to the
original binary archive.
Reason: If a new version of the original archive appears someone
else can package it. Or you might have some error in the
debian.control file, e.g. a wrong dependency. When the packaging files
are available everyone can fix it without having to recreate them.
This won't happen often, but it might be necessary.
(From this reasoning I cannot conclude why the source package needn't
contain the whole binary ...)
Sven
--
Sven Rudolph <sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de> ; WWW : http://www.sax.de/~sr1/
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