Re: Source only uploads?
On Fri, Oct 17, 2003 at 02:53:48PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 17, 2003 at 02:25:04PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 01:52:38PM -0400, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 07:48:33PM +0200, W. Borgert wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > a few days ago, I uploaded an emacs mode package (all) source only
> > > > w/o problems to ftp-master. Today, a source only upload was rejected.
> > > > Why? I think, we should get rid of binary uploads...
> > > >
> > > > Cheers!
> > >
> > > Please search the list archives for the reasons why source uploads are
> > > not allowed. This has been hashed out before. Highlights:
> > > - it encourages carelessness
> > > - Architecture: all packages would not get built
> >
> > Well, we just need an arch: all autobuilder and that's it, or one of the
> > autobuilders building the arch: all stuff.
>
> Feel free to set up one.
Yeah, sure, not problem, and i will set it up behind my ADSL link, right ?
> > The reason why source only uploads (or binary uploads where the binary
> > part is ignored) are good, is that they limit the errors that may be
> > introduced by the DD build environment, which may be a bit more than
> > just sid. Like when you have XFree86 4.3.0 experimental packages
> > installed for example.
>
> The reason why source only uploads are bad, is that they encourage bad
> practice such as people not checking the build. By requiring at least
> one binary package, we ensure the package can at least be built. That's
> a good thing, since it saves time otherwise wasted on packages failing
> to build because the maintainer didn't even bother to test.
Sure, but there where also people who did it after having built their
packages, to be sure the packages where built in a clean sid
environment. Also, there may be people who do source only uploads
because of bandwith concerns. I know i did when i was using a pay per
minutes 56K modem line, and had to upload multi-megabyte binary
packages.
> I have less problems with the second part of your suggestion ("binary
> uploads where the binary part is ignored"), as long as it's not so
> time-consuming that becomes a problem (which I'm afraid is likely to be
> the case).
Well, most people upload x86 anyway, and to a lesser extent powerpc. I
doubt any of these arches have problem rebuilding those packages. It is
not like everyone was uploading m68k or arm.
> > And if we are going to use experimental more and more, like aj
> > suggested, this is going to be more and more of a problem in the future.
>
> Since experimental isn't autobuilt, I fail to see your point.
Well, try to install the quark 3.21-1 package on your system for example
then, and you will see what i mean.
I have XFree86 4.3.0 installed on my system, and i guess many other DD
have it or other experimental stuff installed, or self installed stuff,
or some older version of a library, or who knows what else.
When i uploaded quark 3.21-1, do you know what happened ? It brang with
it a xlibs (> 4.3.0) dependency, which naturally was not fullfillable in
sid or sarge. The packages was fine for all other architectures where it
was autobuilt.
And there may be thousand of other ways why you shouldn't thrust the
build environment of the individual developers, not even taking in
acount malicious uploads, and these may be problems that don't appear in
the source of the packages.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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