On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 04:21:52PM -0200, Pablo Lorenzzoni wrote: > <snip> > | I don't object to a ports-like system for Debian; I object to the idea of > | pulling anything directly from upstream and installing it on a Debian > | machine using Debian-provided tools. > Come on... most of us have > non-packaged-pulled-straight-from-upstream-and-compiled tarballs in our > systems. Really? Most of my systems don't have such software installed; when it is installed, it's proprietary software that wouldn't be available in ports anyway. > I don't see why we couldn't provide better tools to build .deb > packages out of tarballs in a Ports-like system and ease users life by > allowing it to use our dpkg database to manage those packages. It is not the package manager that makes Debian a coherent system; it's Policy that does this. Making it easier for users to install packages that do not conform to Policy makes it easier for those users to break their systems. > Maybe, if such a system does exist, we should have policies allowing then to > be installed just under /usr/local or something like that. That would be ok, but difficult to enforce: upstream could at any time change their software to install somewhere else by default. If it doesn't use autoconf, how do you handle that? > | > Come on... is it really that a big deal? It's just some way for > | > advanced users to generate .deb packages from upstream tarballs. Maybe > | > even we, developers, could have some use for it, after all... > | I don't think advanced users are the ones most likely to use such a tool. > So what? A regular user can use devscripts with no restrictions, why couldn't > he use a Ports-like system? If devscripts is a loaded handgun pointed at your foot, an unvetted ports system is a nuclear missile suspended downward above your house with a button that says 'press here'. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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