Re: O: Gnus -- A versatile News and mailing list reader for Emacsen.
"Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org> writes:
> - upstream includes "genuinely useless cruft" which removal
> causes "significant space savings" (Imagine some 20k tool
> containing 50M screenshots of how cool it is once you got
> it compiled)
> -> repack it removing that stuff
> - upstream includes thing we cannot distribute without
> breaking laws or SC §1
> -> repack it removing that stuff
The discussion is about whether, after the removal of data from an
upstream .tar.gz, it is ok for it to be still named ".orig.tar.gz"
(with a version that does not exist upstream). These examples you
cite are good examples of what this dispute is about, but they're
not arguments for either side.
One side of the dispute says ".orig.tar.gz is just a package we
name to mean 'well, that's roughly what upstream put in it, we
didn't add anything, but maybe we removed something". The other
side thinks that's somewhat unfair to the user, and says "if we
call it foo_1.3.orig.tar.gz, it damn well should be _exactly_ what
upstream released as version 1.3 of foo. If we modify what's in
there, it's not enough to create a new version -
foo_1.3dfsg.orig.tar.gz - but to rename the base name there, to
make it clear it's not foo, but some variation thereof -
foo-dfsg_1.3.orig.tar.gz".
I'm not sure there's an objective way to consider either one of
the two approaches to be "more correct" or "what The User[tm]
wants" (The User[tm] here being the ISO standardized user, of
course).
Manoj states that he does not want to fake an upstream version.
Whether you agree with him that it's a "fake" or not, I'm sure
everyone can _understand_ why he _thinks_ it's a "fake", and why
he might have qualms to do this (he's not alone, either).
Should Debian enforce a policy here? If so, who decides on what
the policy is? Surely not the ftp-masters.
Must we decide on a policy? Can't Manoj just package gnus-dfsg and
be done with it? Is that really such a big problem?
I think not.
Regards,
-- Jorgen
--
Debian GNU/Linux Developer
forcer@debian.org
http://www.forcix.cx/
Reply to: