Re: New package standards - LAST CALL

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

Miquel:
> If they don't react [to the request to convert to the new source package]
> in say 2 weeks, someone else can do it (I'll take some) like David did
> during the transition from a.out to ELF.

Thanks for volunteering! Please make sure to merge the multi-architecture
patches while you do that.

> would it be possible to look for an additional architecture
> dependant patch? For example, if you have
> bash-1.14.6-1.dsc
> bash-1.14.6-1.EXTRA.alpha.diff.gz

I strongly prefer only one patch per package. I'd prefer the
architecture-specific stuff to be in the one main patch, with ifdefs, etc.
if necessary. One reason is that there is rarely a patch to user code
that is necessary for only _one_ architecture. Either it's word-size,
or endian-ness, or something else that is going to be necessary for
ultra-sparc as well as alpha, etc.

A second reason is that it's nice for the packager to be able to see all
of the Debian changes at once. Otherwise, it would be too easy to make
incompatible changes that are only caught when we go to build on the
architecture that has its own patches.

	Thanks

	Bruce