Re: Automatic Debug Packages
On Wed, Jul 29 2009, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> I think that we would need a clear policy of what packages are
>> expected to do as well. Policy does not mandate that helper packages be
>> used in Debian packages, and we can't suddenly start mandating that
>> they be used.
>
> I think you misunderstood it. The archive would start to accept
> .ddebs, but they won't be mandatory. Then packages using
> debhelper/whatever would build .ddeb packages if appropriate, but
> packages not using helper tools would keep working as they do now, not
> building .ddebs (not automatically by debhelper at least, but they
> could build them manually or use some other mechanism) and would still
> be accepted. So nothing would be forced to use helper tools. It's
> rather that if you want automatic .ddeb packages, you can get them
> with debhelper, but you can build them manually or use something else
> if you wish. Not ideal, but I haven't found a better alternative.
On the contrary, I think you are missing the point. The
work-unit put in by developers is not the only issue this brings up,
We do not want to have different helper package start inventing
a helper specific way of building ddebs, with no clear standard tha
they are following.
>> So, we figure out first exactly what needs to be done, and then
>> the helper packages implement that standard; as opposed to the standard
>> being whatever the current helper package implementation happens to be.
>
> That would be, packages may start to build .ddeb packages. Then helper
> tools or packages themselves can do the work to build them. For helper
> tools, we would get them automatically without any changes to the
> packages themselves, and that's something around 97% of the archive.
While archive coverage is nice, ensuring that a ddeb is
properly defined, and that all the different ways of creating ddebs are
consistent, should happen first.
Coming up with a standard and policy after the fact, with 97% of
the archive not quite following policy would be a nightmare, no?
manoj
--
Chown up. Chow down.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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