On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 17:34:35 +0100 Wookey <wookey@wookware.org> wrote: > Can people stop calling each other 'wrong' in such a confrontational > manner please. I'm not convinced that the world is falling in here, > and having a big argument isn't very likely to help. OK - all I want is a replacement for apt-cross to be investigated, not the composition of yet another hack around existing hacks by using Contents files. > So the change is that not all the development files need to be in the > -dev package, but could be in packages depended on by -dev. > > This does break the convenient dependency-resolution shortcut that > apt-cross uses to work out what needs to be downloaded. True. > However if there is a good reason for this change then this just > highlights what we already know - which is that we need a smarter > cross-dependency resolution tool. Yes - not a hack that complicates our existing cross-dependency resolution tool. After all, we know that apt-cross isn't up to that job, it is OK at a limited role currently - unless a package using this Policy change breaks things. > If there isn't a good reason then > asking to have this changed or improved would make sense. But I don't > think that this justiofies talk of "The only result of filing a bug > against apt-cross for this issue will be a bump to Severity:grave (not > compliant with Policy)" and the removal of apt-cross from Sid and > Squeeze. > > apt-cross will remain useful until it is replaced by something bewtter > even if it doesn;t always work. (it already doesn't always work - the > sky has not fallen in yet) True. This is a heads-up that the Policy change could lead to breakage which would not be obvious initially. We don't need to hack together a new workaround because this isn't breaking things yet - we need to concentrate on devising a replacement for apt-cross. > It has been suggested to me that the reason for the change is to allow > _runtime_ arch-indep files to go in a -common package. > Development-time files should remain in -dev. Is this for things like the orbit and GObject marshallers? > That would be OK, I think (can anyone think of a reason why it would > break things?) Depends if the split-out packages are Architecture:any (everything works) or Architecture:all (apt-cross will likely fail). >, but policy doesn't say that so packagers may not do > the right thing. It would need clarifying if that is indeed the idea. > > I have not yet found the original discussion leading to the change, > but presumably there is some. Reading that might help us work out > whether this change is sensible or not, and if it is we probably need > to work out how to deal with it. > > I haven't quite got my head round what everyone is saying in this > thread yet. I'll read it again and try to make sense of things. > > But please, a little more calm all round would be good. Sorry. There is no reason to rush around thinking up crazy fixes for apt-cross due to this change, I posted because I wanted people to take time to think about a replacement. Please stop talking about fixing apt-cross - that isn't the point. We need a replacement and this Policy change is far enough away from really breaking stuff that we have time to look into a replacement - it just gives us a good reason to get that replacement working before Squeeze rather than after. I would really like to not have to put apt-cross into Squeeze if I can avoid it. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ http://e-mail.is-not-s.ms/
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