Re: Advice on packaging SAGE
* Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso <jordigh@gmail.com> [070529 01:30]:
> Unfortunately, packaging it for Debian looks like a momentuous task.
> SAGE, as it stands right now, distributes its own versions of a number
> of other free software packages that are already in Debian, e.g.
> Maxima and Octave (and many more). I have asked SAGE's lead developer
> about this, and he says that the specific versions of these
> dependencies, which the SAGE hackers have patched for their own
> purposes, are extremely important and SAGE cannot function with a
> different version of these dependencies.
>
> Is there anything that can be done about this? Packaging a different
> version of Octave with a _SAGE version number or whatever seems
> ridiculous. Is SAGE unpackageable or should a DD be in charge of
> modifying SAGE sufficiently in order to give good compatibility with
> other existing Debian packages?
I think in the long run only makeing Sage work with unpatched versions
and/or pushing patches to the required programs is the only possible way.
Short term having to include some local versions might be possible in the
interim (many ridicilus large packages like OOo have started like this).
But that should not be different packages but ideally not visible to
the outside if they are patched in a way they do no longer show their
normal stand-alone behaviour.
An other route would to start with would to take a look at all the
included packages and start with packaging those (perhaps best starting
with the unpatched versions). I'm sure there are many of those which
are usefull alone and not yet packages. (Singular alone is already a
gigantic beast. I've just made some private packages of it and to only
get it compile halfly decently and make sure most of the files end up
in the right place is quite a task. I don't want do know what time
making proper and well tested packages from it would need).
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
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