Re: policy regarding redistributable binary files in upstream tarballs
Salvo Tomaselli <tiposchi@tiscali.it> writes:
> Should the upstream tarball be repackaged to remove them, or not?
First, note that the source package of any package in Debian is also
covered by the Social Contract. (Some people are surprised by this, so
it bears stating explicitly.)
Second, the Social Contract (in the DFSG) requires that the work's
source form be in Debian. This can be done by having the source form in
the same source package, or in some other package in Debian.
So, to be in Debian, any non-source form of a work in the source package
must clearly have its corresponding source form in Debian.
With those in mind, the problem of “how do you *know* that the specified
source form corresponds to this non-source form?” Upstream may claim
that a file somewhere else is the source form for what they're shipping;
but how do *you*, as Debian package maintainer, verify that?
The normal way to answer that is: Don't ship upstream non-source forms
at all. Instead, ship a source package that only has the source form of
the work, build the non-source form from source and ship the result in
the binary packages.
If you choose not to do that, you're leaving it to the FTP masters to
judge whether the source form really corresponds to the non-source form.
AFAIK there's no hard policy rule about that, but it is at least an
extra burden on anyone trying to vet your package for DFSG compliance.
To see the FTP master view expressed by the team, see
<URL:https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/1948618.u6YZvnFvaf@scott-latitude-e6320>.
--
\ “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we |
`\ despise, we don't believe in it at all.” —Noam Chomsky, |
_o__) 1992-11-25 |
Ben Finney
Reply to: