Re: OIO debian, Re: dang zpsycopgDA problem (fwd)
Just for the record and clarification I foreward my private mail to
the list because Jim told me that he wanted to post to the list and
so there is no reason to keep this mail private ...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 07:43:52 +0200 (CEST)
From: Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>
To: Jim Penny <jpenny@universal-fasteners.com>
Subject: Re: OIO debian, Re: dang zpsycopgDA problem
On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Jim Penny wrote:
> Note: I pretty strongly disagree with this. A good upstream
Why not posting this on the list. I do not have any problem to discuss
different opinions. Thus feel free to quote all I wrote in public.
> development team has plenty to do without worrying about Debian
> packaging, which, while not particularly difficult, is somewhat
> esoteric, requires a lot of reading of policy, and can be done well only
> with experience.
In my opinion this depends from the project. The opinion I expressed above
had grown when I tried to start packaging BioMail
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med/doc#biomail
Packaging needed several patches to upstream and I had to work hard to
get upstream an idea, what packaging means. (This is in principle independend
from DEB or RPM - just to give them an idea about the difference from
installing a package via script and via a package tool.)
> What I have seen with most upstream produced packages is that they are
> not very good. Upstream tends to be focussed, and rightly so, on
> getting the program to work well. Packaging is often, at best, an
> afterthought.
You are completely right and I really do not want upstream builded Debian
packages! In my opinion it is the best way to sponsor those upstream
builded packages and care just for the quality of the packages.
> The fact that the debian archive system exists means that there is far
> less reason for an upstream to provide a debian version on his own
> server. Instead, he should just say what to put in sources.list and
> "apt-get install foo".
For sure. I'm completely against packages outside the Debian archive
and would not trust them very much. If I ever would use those stuff
I think I would perhaps try to compile them from source.
> On the other hand, if a package is prepared for Debian and not put into
> the archives, it tends to fall apart. Without the pressure of bug
> reports, and the wider audience that being in the archives provide, the
> package often fails to work on more recent systems, as dependencies
> shift out from under the original packager.
This is my intention. Bringing software under BTS quality checks and get
upstream informed immediately (because they builded the package). I ever
and ever told people about the strength of BTS and not every project has
the power to set up their own BTS. Well sourceforge has such kind of
stuff but I do not really trust this because you have no real information
about the system the user who reports the bug is running. In Debian
BTS all things are clear and straightforeward.
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-med-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: