Re: Porting of non-free packages
Richard Braakman wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 02:50:15PM +0900, Tomohiro KUBOTA wrote:
> > There are a few solutions.
> >
> > - Buildd supports non-free also. (with lower priority so that
> > non-free packages should not affect building of main packages...
> > any idea of "lower priority"? "after freeze" is a good idea.)
>
> I'm afraid it's not as easy as pointing a buildd at non-free.
> Some packages in contrib and non-free might have strange requirements
> for building, such as libraries that are not publically available.
It should build okay if it has a `Build-Depends' which you can
satisfy. Do we have a way to list unpackaged dependencies on
Build-Depends?
> And there's no automatic way to tell if the package's license allows
> porting. Some might be licensed for only one architecture, or might
> require specific approval of each new binary.
Then it shouldn't be listed in the Architecture field, right?
> So this is going to have to be done by hand. Perhaps maintainers
> could register their packages as ok-to-build, though.
>
> > - Non-free packages can be included in testing without having
> > binaries for all architectures. (Since non-free is not an official
> > part of Debian, this doesn't mean degrading quality of Debian.)
>
> I could accept the above, but I also have another proposal.
>
> - Non-free and contrib packages contain a list of supported
> architectures. This will be the architectures the maintainer
> or helpers have access to. The package can move into testing
> when it has been compiled for all of these, and old versions
> on other architectures (if any) are then removed.
>
> This list will be different from the "Architecture:" field, which
> lists on what platforms the package can be built at all.
I don't know if this is needed.
Case in point: I've had xwatch (contrib, needs non-free
libforms-dev to build) in unstable for 40 days. It needs to be
built on powerpc and m68k. I have obtained an account on m68k
and have asked that libforms-dev be installed, and then I'll
build it for m68k. That leaves powerpc. I _might_ ask
voltaire's admin to install libforms-dev, or I might simply file
a bug report against ftp.debian.org to have the old powerpc
version of xwatch removed from testing. It's my understanding
that this would clear the patch for the migration from unstable
to testing.
At my next upload of xwatch, there won't be an old powerpc
version in testing to hold me up. If someone with access to
powerpc wants to build it and upload it, then fine, they can do
that. And I can have that package removed if it becomes putdated
again.
Perhaps someone can run through a case where using bugs against
ftp.debian.org can't solve the problem?
Peter
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