Re: vrms and contrib installers (was: Re: "non-free" software included in contrib)
John H. Robinson, IV <jaqque@debian.org> wrote:
> my experience with the installer .deb's is limited mostly to the
> installers made for pine and djbware.
>
> they download the source, patch the source, then build the source. the
> result is a .deb. that .deb can then be installed. since it is a .deb
> installed by dpkg, it is under dpkg control and can be removed at any
> time. the additional benefit is that you can take that .deb and install
> it elsewhere, too.
>
> this works for things like pine and djbware, since the source code is
> available. for things like flash or MS Office, source would not be
> available. the installer making a .deb out of a binary distribution may
> be harder, but i feel that it is certainly possible.
It's in fact easier. Just `mv' the binary to debian/tmp/usr/bin.
XForms use to be like this.
> Mathieu Roy wrote:
>
> > I think that, at least, these installer, to be included in debian,
> > should be forced to build a real debian package for this non-free
> > software, when installing it.
That's a good idea!
> the ones that i am familir with do exactly that. i cannot speak for all
> of them, though.
Most don't.
> > Some packages clearly identified that vrms can clearly identify, some
> > package we can easily track and remove completely at will.
>
> IIRC, the qmail.deb is placed into section Local, which is why VRMS does
> not notice it.
>
> > So I think it would be appropriate to fill a bug for any of these
> > installers, asking them to build a correct debian package for the
> > software they install.
> >
> > What do you think?
>
> i would not mind if the installer's built .deb were listed as section
> non-free, so vrms could pick it up.
wishlist bug, but yes it's a good idea. It could become policy when
enough of then do it.
Peter
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