On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 08:16:07PM +0100, Leo costela Antunes wrote:
> >>> Sorry, but I disagree with this interpretation. For me a Debian native
> >>> package is a package which contains the official debian packaging stuff
> >>> in the upstream tarball. Since I'm also upstream for gdome2-xslt and the
> >>> software has been used historically always as a Debian package, to me
> >>> that is a native Debian package.
>
> I couldn't find any better and more direct references, but according to
> [0] and [1] your interpretation is wrong.
I was aware of [0] and I was (and still am) convinced that it is not so
clear about the topic. The "definition" of native packages there is
inside an "i.e." parenthesis which says: ``packages which have been
written especially for Debian''. Well, gdome2-xslt has been written
especially for Debian, since its original target deployment were only
Debian machines (though it has the ordinary configure/make stuff and can
be deployed elsewhere by simply ignoring the debian/ dir).
I was not aware of [1], which is indeed more precise about the topic.
But personally I do not often read the maintainer guide and, assuming
that is the intended meaning of native debian package, then I want that
meaning to be integrated in the policy.
Besides, according to [2] (still in the policy), my interpretation is
not so wrong. Quoting from the "debian_revision" paragraph:
> This format represents the case where a piece of software was written
> specifically to be turned into a Debian package, and so there is only
> one "debianisation" of it and therefore no revision indication is
> required.
I consider gdome2-xslt as perfectly fitting in this category. Note how
this interpretation does not rule out other distribution, nor make any
assumption about whether the package is meaningful outside Debian or
not.
Wrapping up, I can't care less whether gdome2-xslt is Debian native or
not, and I would happy to convert it to a non-native Debian package.
Still, and before doing so, I want to have a clear and agreed upon
interpretation of what is a Debian native package, which is *reflected*
in our authoritative documents.
Cheers.
[0] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html#s3.2.1
[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/ch-update.en.html#s-orig-tar
[2] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Version
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science ............... now what?
zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it} -%- http://www.bononia.it/zack/
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