Re: Binary-only packages
Sven Rudolph writes:
> 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.
I cannot agree here. I don't think a package should be name non-free just
because it's source isn't available. I think non-free should (and does) mean
that the package (that is the binary) is not free to be distributed
> 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.
Good idea. But without a diff file it looks like an original Debian package.
> 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.
You got a point with this.
> (From this reasoning I cannot conclude why the source package needn't
> contain the whole binary ...)
At first I agreed with this, too. But thinking about it this would make the
source package architecture dependend. Not really a good idea.
Michael
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