Re: Documentation for upstream software authors

[Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>]

Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote:
> I've just started http://wiki.debian.net/SoftwarePackaging, intended to 
> collect thoughts of packagers how upstream developers can make the life of 
> a packager easier.
> 
> I'm sure all packagers have wondered about "brain-dead" upstream developers 
> who have not put much thought into how their software might be distributed 
> in a pre-compiled/pre-configured package.  Compile-time options are one 
> example, user-modifiable files outside of /etc are another, to name the two 
> that I could think of just now.

What comes to my mind:

 - public version control (cvs, arch, svn) by upstream
 - public development mailing list
 - public availability of old and new versions at a defined location
   (for watch files etc.)
 - clean clean target
 - don't distribute auto-generated files except for configure/autofoo
   but add rules to the Makefile to generate them on-demand
 - add a private mail address of the lead developer to the distributed
   files (contrary to only a mailing list, this is important for security
   problems that need to be discussed off the public first)
 - configurability of path names (so that the pkg can be made FHS compatible
   easily without loads of patches)
 - an announce list and a packager list may also be helpful to notify
   packages of new versions / security problems (private)

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
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