Re: Architecture independent binaries and building from source

[Shaun Jackman <sjackman@telus.net>]

On Tue August 10, 2004 02h50, Roland Stigge wrote:
> ===========================================================================
> 2.1. The Debian Free Software Guidelines:
> [...]
>      Source Code
>           The program must include source code, and must allow distribution
>           in source code as well as compiled form.
> ===========================================================================
> 
> "source code as well as compiled form" shouldn't mean: "Possibly source
> code form, but in this case you also need the binaries at first."

The text is clear that both the source code and the binary are
required. I have included both in the package.

> ===========================================================================
> 4.8. Main building script: `debian/rules'
>      This file must be an executable makefile, and contains the
>      package-specific recipes for compiling the package and building binary
>      package(s) from the source.
> [...]
> ===========================================================================
> 
> It is not explicitly stated if the latter means "source package" or
> "source code" (point for clarification in Policy?), but since it talks
> about "source package" at other places, this could be a piece of
> circumstantial evidence that "source code" is meant.

I certainly agree that debian/rules must rebuild the binary packages
from the sources packages (FTBFS is definitely a bug). However, I
don't agree that all files must be indiscriminately rebuilt from their
base source. This is not current practice in any case. We do not, for
example, generally rebuild configure from configure.ac.

> Also consider the hassles we come into when we need to patch upstream
> sources;

If I find later that I need to patch upstream's sources, I can modify
the build system then. In the mean time, I prefer to maintain a
pristine binary (identical to upstream's).

> and reliably and automatically checking if packages build from source.

The binary package will automatically build from the source package
(which includes the architecture independent binary file), but isn't
automatically building from the source code. All the source code is
included, however, and it is possible to rebuild from the source code.

Cheers,
Shaun