Re: Some ideas to improve the debian policy
Pablo De Napoli wrote:
> I want to tell you about some ideas I have , to improve the debian policy.
>
> Here are my ideas:
>
> * Pack the static versions of a library on a separate package.
Quoting policy:
4.2. Libraries
--------------
All libraries must have a shared version in the lib package and a
static version in the lib-dev package.
> I suggest to split the -dev package for a library
> (for ej: libgtk-dev) in two separate packages: -headers and -static
> (in this example: libgtk-dev and libgtk-static). This would allow the
> user to choose exactly what he needs , and save a lot of disk space
> (and also download time , when getting the files by ftp)
It's a tradeoff between a small gain for people who are developing with
the library, and a small loss for people who are not (every new package
adds to the time people must spend downloaidng Packages files and
reading through package lists in dselect, capt, and so on).
> * When there several versions the documentation (html,postscript,info)
> pack eack of them on a separate package.
>
> Reason: you probably don't need to have several copies of the same
> documentation at the same time. If you want to read it online, the html
> or the info version is better. In case you want to print it, you probably
> want a postscript version.
Again, this creates a lot of new packages for fairly little gain.
Instead policy allows a -doc package to be split off for extra
documentation.
> * When writing a /debian/rules file , think of the user that (like myself)
> prefer to download the source and build the binaries from the source.
> When several packages are built from the same source , let the user
> choose which ones he wants to build (if they are independent of each
> other) , and explain (in comments) how to select the packages that he
> want.
This is a good thing. People who use debhelper and want to do this
should take a look at /usr/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.multi2.
> I suggest doing this in some uniform way for all the packages.
I'm afraid that isn't easily done, there is too much variety in both debian
and upstream build systems.
> * When installing the mo files for language translations (in
> /usr/share/locale) let the user choose which languages he wants
> (thought some environment variable ?)
We would love to support this, but it is not clear how to do it; see the
archives of this mailing list.
--
see shy jo
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