Re: O: Gnus -- A versatile News and mailing list reader for Emacsen.
* Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> [060425 15:59]:
> > Such a stripped down archive will most likely not have a working
> > build system and some stale references to stuff no longer contained,
> > which can and has to be cleaned up in the .diff.gz (at least for the
> > stuff relevant stuff, no need to patch a build script for DOS)
>
> Frankly, that means the original program as shipped is broken,
> and the user no longer has the freedom of building upstream's
> version and comparing it to the Debian patched one. I think this
> loss ofuser freedom is also significant, and nayone shipping a broken
> .orig.tar.gz is shortchanging the end user.
For me a changed .orig.tar.gz means I no longer can easily verify what
exactly is changed. So I have to not only to download the original
upstream version and unpack it and make sure the files do not differ,
I have effectively two diffs to look at, while one of them I even have
to create on my own.
I prefer something makeing it clear what upstream and what Debian
changes are.
For my stuff I'd prefer having stuff removed so that something does
no longer build, than having people think that changed stuff was
from me. (And having only a -dfsg there, be it before or after the
first dot will make people believe that)
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
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