Re: Package split/merge advice

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Rudy Godoy <rudy@kernel-panik.org> wrote:

> Hi, I'm the maintainer of torcs[0], a car racing game. Initially 
> I've made four -data packages, one is the base data files, and the 
> others are for -tracks and -cars. Due some filled bugs I've
> discovered that it needs another -cars package to have the full enjoy
> of all game's features. 
>
> My question is if it's worth to make a new package for it as 
> upstream provides, or it would be better to have only two packages,
> say one for -tracks and other for -cars, besides the base -data.
>
> I don't want to have a package for every upstream data file which is
> DFSG free. So I'm strongly considering to merge these and work that
> way. I'd like to receive advices about the matter.

I didn't check how big the individual upstream data files are, but yes,
if they are rather small, you can consider creating a merged
"orig".tar.gz file from all of them.

There are also disadvantages, however. Most importantly, you should only
do that if upstream always releases the data files in one go. If they
are released separately, at different times and with different version
numbers, you probably won't be happy with a merged orig.tar.gz - you
would always have to create it newly even if only one component changed;
and you'd have problems picking a version number.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer