Henning Makholm wrote:
I think there is one: laziness. Most of the time people don't even check what they are uploading and then there is the "oopss, didn't see that huge source upload for -15, -16, -17 version of XYZ".5. Non-Debian users care that Debian offers a well-organised archive of upstream sources of free software, which can often be compiled on other platforms. This is kind of peripheral to the value we add, but it is immensely useful at times (say, when I needed to compile VCG on a RedHat machine, the upstream ftp site was dead, and the Debian archive was the only place where source could be found). But it only works well if one can get *original* source without added debianisms that cannot easily be found or rolled back. On the other hand, I don't see any material advantage in not distinguishing between the original and Debian additions.
Anyway, I have found some great advantages of having .diff.gz one of which is at least some bandwidth conservation. For example, if xemacs has a version,
21.4.15-1
-2
-3
-4
21.4.16-1
Why would someone that wants to rebuild these packages (for whatever
reason), need to DL 10MB of stuff for every single debian release? Why
not just DL 10MB once, then you just need 4 x 100kB.
What about if I want to see the difference between -2 and -3? Do I need to actually compare the entire darn tree or just the diff?
What if I want to see the difference between upstream .15 and .16? Without the .orig.tar.gz, I can't.
Maybe we need a Policy change that addresses this so that all packages that are *not* Debian specific or made for Debian exclusively, are required to use the .orig.tar.gz + diff.gz package method. Right now this is only a guideline in the Policy which I believe is insufficient :(
- Adam