Re: Request for sponsor: timer-q1 and socket-poll1

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

James Antill <james@and.org> wrote:
> I'm in n the NM queue, and would like someone to sponsor my packages
>"timer-q1", "timer-q1--dev", "socket-poll1" and "socket-poll1-dev".
> Adding...
>
>deb-src ftp://ftp.and.org/debian/james_debs/ ./

ftp://ftp.and.org/pub/james/debian/, perhaps?

I'd consider sponsoring these packages; my job is with a web server
company, so I have some interest in the subject matter :)

A few comments (nitpicky and otherwise) on the packaging so far:

  * socket-poll has a random DEBIAN directory in the diff that should be
    deleted.

  * I'd recommend using at least debhelper v2 (DH_COMPAT=2) these days,
    since debhelper v3 has just been declared complete.

  * Maybe update the policy versions to 3.5.0, and do the
    DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS stuff? (See the policy manual.) If you're being
    really careful, this requires a build dependency on debhelper (>=
    2.1.6).

  * You're creating the spurious directory /usr/share/doc/timer_q-1.0.4,
    which should be deleted. Have a look at 'dpkg -c whatever.deb' to
    make sure the filesystem layout is sensible.

  * debian/rules would be easier to read if the various commented-out
    debhelper lines were removed. It's also good to remove the ones you
    aren't using; timer-q doesn't really use dh_installexamples,
    dh_installcron, or dh_link, for example.

  * Actually, perhaps both packages should get dh_installexamples to do
    something (probably in the -dev packages), as you do seem to have
    example code available ...

  * In the socket-poll control file, the first two uses of "it's" in
    each binary package paragraph should be "its", as they're
    possessives; the third one is OK. Call me picky. :)

  * dh_installdocs will create /usr/share/doc directories for you, so
    you don't need to mention them in debian/dirs.

  * I think you're missing some build dependencies. Look at what the
    configure script outputs, and consider what packages the programs or
    files are in. If they aren't build-essential, and if the package
    would be built differently if they weren't there, then you need to
    build-depend on them. For instance, socket-poll appears to be
    missing at least bzip2, mail-transport-agent (for sendmail),
    libgnome-dev (for gnome-config), libncurses5-dev (for termcap.h),
    and zlib1g-dev (for zlib.h). Some of these seem a bit unlikely for a
    library - BZIP2_PATH and SENDMAIL_PATH don't actually seem to be
    used, so perhaps the checks could be removed upstream.

Let me know when you've looked over these comments - I think these would
be useful libraries to have packaged.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]