Re: Bug#457353: gdome2-xslt: should not be a Debian-native package
On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 07:35:12PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> tags 457353 + wontfix
> thanks
>
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 07:20:57PM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:
> > You're missing a .diff.gz, which means that this is a native package. This
> > package is in no way specific to Debian, which means that this shouldn't be
> > a Debian-native package.
>
> 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 can only agree with that.
There's only one reason why we need to have a .diff.gz: because some
licenses require it. If you're packaging someone else's code, and their
license requires you to clearly separate your own patches from the
pristine upstream source, then you need a diff anyway; so why not make
it easy and make that part of the source package format. After all,
originally there were no .dsc or .diff.gz files in a Debian source
package.
Since that turned out to be not totally legal, a new source package
format was created where you have a .diff.gz and a .dsc file, so that
you could easily separate your own changes from the pristine upstream
source (more to the point: so that your own changes would automatically
be separate from the pristine upstream source). But if you hold the
copyright on the original code, there's no decent reason why you have to
use the .diff.gz IMO, which also implies that you can do whatever the
hell you please on that subject. If you think maintaining two completely
distinct repositories for the very same source is silly (which it is),
there's no reason why you can't make your package debian-native.
Anyone who wants to package your source for something else than Debian
is then free to completely and utterly ignore your debian/ directory...
--
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
-- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22
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