Re: Proposed `cargo-upstream` dpkg-buildpackage etc. build profile
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> I would like to add the following entry to the table of build
> profiles in BuildProfileSpec:
> Profile anme: `cargo-upstream`
> Can cause changes to built binaries, including functional chnges. (Y)
> Should not cause changes to set of build debs. (N)
> Description:
> Obtain Rust dependencies from crates.io, not from Debian; use a
> `Cargo.lock` from the source package if there is one. Will usually
> cause cargo to make network accesses. Ideally, behaviour of the
> resulting programs will be the same, but this is not guaranteed.
> This is useful when developing packages which are to be uploaded to
> Debian, but whose build dependencies are not yet available in the
> targeted suite.
I think this is a great idea.
In addition to the benefits you list (and less importantly, because
there's less direct affect on Debian), having this feature available would
make it easier to create a first pass of a package of a Rust tool intended
for local use. I often build semi-broken short-cut packages locally of
things I need on some system but haven't yet found the time to make them
properly ready for Debian, and then gradually finish the work to get them
into Debian. It would be very useful to have this support to get over the
initial barrier to making a Debian package.
I think it would increase the likelihood that I'd eventually do the work
to get all the way to an uploadable Debian package, whereas if it's
difficult to bootstrap from Cargo, I'm much more likely to let laziness
win, just build a static binary, and copy it around.
This is why I don't agree with Jonas: yes, there *are* other ways to
achieve the same goal, but they're more complicated and harder to explain.
The user experience of this build profile looks a lot simpler and cleaner.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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