Re: Is tabular data in binary format acceptable for Debian ?
Am Mittwoch, den 20.01.2010, 15:42 +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:
> Yes, but you can not assume that ftpmaster is an R *user*
Of course I can't but I do not see why ftpmasters should care how to
extract data from these files. The only relevant information to them is
that the data is the preferred form of modification.
> nor is README.Source a document which is targeting at an end user.
True. It's targeted at maintainers. And if one maintains an R package or
is interested in maintaining one, I assume(d) that that person is
familiar with R. I do not see a use case where such a data export is
relevant in (for example) an NMU scenario. If the NMUer needs to change
the data, doing a little R scripting is needed anyway, so I can safely
assume that person to know R.
I understand the use case Martin has mentioned in his email that a user
might want to extract/convert that data. In this case, if Debian is
really the place to provide that information, it is better suited in
README.Debian and a more general place, like r-base, as it is the same
for every R extension. There is no need to duplicate that in each and
every package, IMHO. Also, in case this changes, one has to update a
huge amount of packages. That's also the reason why we do link to quilt
and dpatch in that file[0].
I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, that is not my intention. It just feels
like a huge overhead for no gain. I've not checked but I guess OOo does
not contain information about how to extract all headers from an .odf in
README.Source.
Best regards
Manuel
[0] The situation with them is a little different, as they are needed to
build a Debian package. Fiddling with .Rdata files is a modification of
upstream source.
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