Re: Is tabular data in binary format acceptable for Debian ?
On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 11:56:00AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> > an intermediate format
> > (be it text, or binary like .odt or .xls) and require the addition of
>
> I can't speak for the Debian ftpmaster team, but I would think the usual
> guideline applies: We should seek "the preferred form of the work for
> making modifications to it" as the source form of the work.
>
> So, if upstream uses some canonical form of the tabular data for making
> modifications to it, that should be in the source package.
I perfectly agree here. The idea that there should be a conversion to
any other binary format like .odt (I know it is compressed XML, but it
is presented in binary form) or .xls would be contraproductive at best
because you would need to install just another package to read this
while R which just can read the data is installed via dependencies.
Perhaps it would be a reasonable compromise if README.Source would
mention a short command line which converts the data into text form?
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
http://fam-tille.de
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