Re: dbs package - should I upload it?

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Adam" == Adam Heath <adam@doogie.org> writes:

    Adam> uh, um, er, oh, ah

    Adam> The author(me) is flabbergasted.  Wow.

Thanks for the compliment ;-)

    >> It basically works, but I still need to write documentation
    >> (the man page has "still to be written" as the only informative
    >> text) for it, and I imagine many improvements will still be
    >> possible.
    >> 
    >> Is anyone interested in this? Should I upload it to Debian?
    >> Would anyone be more interested in maintaining it then me
    >> <grin>?

    Adam> As I am the author, it might be best for me to maintain it.

Ok, I will send you a copy of the standard Debian tar.gz file, at
least what I have written so far.

(sounds like you understand this stuff better then me...)

    >> [snip] Technote: dbs-edit-patch extracts all patches before
    >> 021_debian into /tmp/021_debian/heimdal-0.3d, copies the result
    >> to /tmp/021_debian/heimdal-0.3d-old, and applies the last patch
    >> 021_debian (if it exists). Also, it creates a shell archive
    >> which will create the diff between the old and new directories:

    Adam> This is VERY VERY MONDO cool.  Give your self a pat on the
    Adam> back, then go out and have a beer.

Tasks still remaining (some long-term):

- write man page properly.

- write documentation about dbs, what dbs is, why it is a good
thing..., and if/how to use it for new packages.

- possibility of sharing code between dbs-build.mk and dbs-edit-patch?

- need to consider my system of a per-patch dbs-update-patch script,
not sure I like it or not (too many hard coded paths).

- once I start using it, I probably will find other limitations
here and there <grin>.

- integrate some of this stuff into the debian source file format (now
I am really dreaming ;-) ).

- support *.zip as upstream format (I think unzip is now DFSG)???????

    >> Note: [1] I hope to avoid flame-wars as to if DBS is a good/bad
    >> idea. I hope I am not being too optimistic here <grin>.

    Adam> Not possbile(on both counts) :)

;-)

I think a good system for editing patch files may help significantly.

    >> [2] ideally you wouldn't have to specify a temp directory, and
    >> it could be created under the source directory instead, however
    >> dpkg-source would try to include this directory in the diff
    >> file, which is not good. I didn't think deleting the directory
    >> was a good idea either.

    Adam> There are ways around this.

Such as?
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>