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Re: Bug#374373: ITP: googleearth-package -- utility for automatically building a Google Earth Debian package



Joe Smith wrote:
>
> "Wesley J. Landaker" <wjl@icecavern.net> wrote in message
> news:20060618234332.30829.65542.reportbug__43.3442452505872$1150674723$gmane$org@localhost...
>
>> Package: wnpp
>> Severity: wishlist
>> Owner: "Wesley J. Landaker" <wjl@localhost>
>>
>> * Package name    : googleearth-package
>>  Upstream Author : Wesley J. Landaker <wjl@icecavern.net>
>> * URL             : (native package)
>> * License         : GPL
>>  Description     : utility for automatically building a Google Earth
>> Debian package
>>
>> Google Earth is a great program now available for GNU/Linux, but sadly
>> is both non-free and non-distributable. For those who wish to run it on
>> their Debian system, but wish it to be managed by the normal Debian
>> packaging system, this program will assist in building a local Debian
>> package in a similar fashion to java-package. This package *itself*
>> contains absolutely no code from Google and is 100% free. (For the
>> curious, this is appropriately destined for contrib.)
>>
>>
>
> Is this really needed? Google was very careful in making sure that the
> package installs in /usr/local, and does not interfere with the
> system. Normally the main reason why a debian package is better than
> what upsteam distributed is because using upstreams packages will mess
> with stuff it should not touch.
>
> The reason java-package is needed is that upstream's packages are not
> well behaved, and install into /usr, potentially causeing problems if
> it decides to edit the files of other packages.
>
>
> Google Earth takes care of its own updates by prompting the user, and
> allowing them to download and run the new installer (or at least it
> does on windows, and I can't imagine why the linux version would not).
> Needing to use a *-package utility prevents automatic updates anyway,
> and does not simplify installation much if any. So the only real
> advantage would seem to be that it would make Google Earth easier to
> uninstall. Well I guess it simplifies pushing updates out to a bunch
> of workstations, but in most cases users should just download the the
> .bin and run it.
>
>
What's more, google earth can be installed without root privileges and
installs into a users home directory, thus the systems administrator
doesn't even need to install it, the user can

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