Re: Temporary(?) bundling of code that may not warrant its own package

[Gard Spreemann <gspr@nonempty.org>]

Wookey <wookey@wookware.org> writes:

> On 2020-05-20 10:16 +0200, Gard Spreemann wrote:
>> Hi list,
>> 
>> Upstream for a package I maintain has as of its latest release started
>> bundling and requiring a third-party header-only library. I am
>> considering packaging that third-party library (it's useful to me, at
>> the very least) but I think it's a borderline case of whether it
>> warrants being a package on its own. In particular, it does not do
>> versioned releases, and it comes with no documentation
>
> I don't think those are reasons particularly in favour of
> bundling. Plenty of software doesn't do proper releases any more. Just
> use 0~<date> type versioning to allow for them eventually doing a
> release 0.1 or whatever. Again obscure software is quite often poorly
> documented - you are expected to know the field.

Thanks your feedback.

Is there any community consensus on putting the bundling in place
temporarily while the separate package is held up in NEW? Being the
maintainer of both, I would be able to quickly react to the separate
package having cleared NEW, and rid the other package of its bundled
copy.

> If it is useful beyond this one package (and it sounds like it is) I'd
> just package it. A headers-only library is relatively quick and easy to do.
>
>> I would track the bundling as a bug and act on it when/if a separate
>> package enters Debian.
>
> Would you necessarily notice when another package using this
> dependency enters the archive?

Another package using another bundled copy of the package-to-be, or
another package using my package's bundled copy?

In the former case I'd hope that that package's maintainer would notice
and keep track of my ITP. In the latter I'd hope they'd be aware of my
package's bundling bug.


 Best,
 Gard