On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 01:48:43AM -0700, liz wrote: > I am looking for someone to sponsor me in adding a new package to the Debian > unstable tree. The package is called Bitpim http://bitpim.sourceforge.net/ Holy halibut, a 6.5MB RPM for a cellphone bit diddler. Is that chock-full of program file, or are there some mega-icons in there as well? > Currently, it is only distributed as an RPM. In order to get it to > install alien has to be used to convert it to a Debian package. A couple of things there. First, alien doesn't do a real good job of converting rpms to debs, and generally you're not going to get a package past ftpmaster that was created like that, for several reasons: * Can't be rebuilt from source, in the case of security problems or just to verify that the binary was generated from the corresponding source; * Alien-generated packages typically aren't particularly policy-compliant; * Support for other architectures isn't available, even in situations where it would otherwise be trivial to provide. Furthermore, unless that 6.5MB monstrosity has source hiding in there somewhere (and I'm not about to download it and try working out how to extract it, TYVM) it's not distributable by anyone except the initial author, because the GPL requires source distribution alongside binary (except in a couple of corner-cases Debian doesn't do). Sorry to rain on your parade, but I don't think this has a hope of getting into Debian as-is. However, you could try and get the source made available in a standard distribution format, like a tarball. That would be beneficial for Debian and upstream (they'll learn that there are people who don't want an RPM, as rare as they may be), and it would mean that it would then be distributable in Debian (but please make a proper package, rather than relying on alien). > Currently I have several boxes. I would like to try maintaing a package in > the PPC and X86 tree. We don't really have trees here, except for the one threatening my power lines. Except in the occasional circumstance of a package only being useful or usable on certain architectures, Debian packages are built on 12 different architectures from a single source package (hence our burning desire for source tarballs for what we package). In fact, Debian is the semi-official testing ground for niche architectures by several substantial upstreams (like XFree86). If you have a particular interest in the PPC architecture, you might want to get involved with their porting and maintenance effort. I hear buildds are occasionally in need of some TLC. - Matt
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