Re: rpm/deb co-operation

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Jim Pick wrote:

> I think a lot of people might have missed a relatively simple way we
> can take advantage of the momentum of the RPM packaging system.
>
> Why don't we modify dpkg-source to accept .src.rpm's as pristine
> source packages?
>
> Then we could have an additional alien/debmake-like utility to convert
> the RPM spec file rules into a set of rules that could be added to our
> debian/rules Makefiles.
>
> Pretty simple, huh?  It would save tonnes of needless duplication.

now that is one very COOL idea.

if it worked well enough, it could be used by commercial software developers
to easily convert their .rpm packages into .deb packages...increasing the
market for their product.

now combine that with another idea floated recently, that of modifying
dpkg-buildpackage (and/or other tools) so that a packager/developer
could easily create an .rpm package from debianised source.  With one
source tree, both packages could be produced in an automated fashion.

so, to summarise, that (hypothetically :-) gives us:

    1. a tool to automagickally convert SRPMs to debianised source

    2. tools to produce both .deb and .rpm packages from a single 
       debianised source tree

interesting...


craig

ps: a related thought: i wonder how easily the differences between debian
and redhat (and other) file system layouts, /etc, /etc/init.d and other
incompatibilities could be abstracted into a wrapper script to set certain
variables which are used by the Makefile, rules, inst/rm scripts and so on
when building the .rpm or .deb package.  a job for automake or something
like that perhaps?  some sort of a merger or close interaction between
debmake and automake?


--
craig sanders
networking consultant                  Available for casual or contract
temporary autonomous zone              system administration tasks.