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stripping binaries...must we?



Policy says binaries "should" (not "must") be stripped:

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s11.1

"Note that by default all installed binaries should be stripped, either by
using the -s flag to install, or by calling strip on the binaries after they
have been copied into debian/tmp but before the tree is made into a
package."

The upstream author of my new package xprint-xprintorg (upstream
http://xprint.mozdev.org/) has requested
(upstream bug http://mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=2264) that I don't
strip the symbols out, a least for the first few releases, so we can get
useful bug reports, noting that coredumps are not very useful without them.
He comments: 
Xprt without symbols consumes 1545084 bytes
Xprt with    symbols consumes 1744827 bytes
so there's not a huge difference in installed size by retaining the symbols,
and an even smaller difference in the compressed packages.

Why does policy ask us to strip binaries anyway?  Is it merely to reduce
storage and bandwidth costs?

Could someone please clarify if it's appropriate to respect upstream's
wishes to leave the symbols in?

Drew

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