Re: The get-orig-source target as stated in Policy 4.9
On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:47:25 -0800, Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> said:
> Andres Mejia <mcitadel@gmail.com> writes:
>> What I would like to know is, what was the original purpose for the
>> get-orig-source target. Maybe that would clear up what the
>> get-orig-source target is supposed to do.
If my memory serves me correctly, it was meant to do what uscan
does now -- I recall doing this when using cvs-buildpackage to
re-create ../foo_X.Y.orig.tar.gz
> It's been in Policy from before upgrading-checklist was started and
> there's no mention of it in the changelog, so my guess is that you'd
> have to go rather far back in time to find the original discussion.
> Personally, I've always read it has emphasizing an entirely different
> part than what people are talking about here. Rather than focusing on
> the current version bit, I always focused on the "does any necessary
> rearrangement to turn it into the original source tar file format
> described below" bit. I provide this target only for my packages that
> require repackaging of the upstream source as a way of automating that
> repackaging.
> It's a weird target in various respects. For example, should you
> declare the programs it needs in Build-Depends? I don't think so, and
> it would feel weird to me to do so, but as a result I use software in
> get-orig-source for which there's no hint in the source package
> control file might be needed (wget is the most common).
Frankly, all this dicsussion and lack of clarity about what the
policy directive means seems like an excellent opportunity to remove
crift from policy. After all, if people don't know what the policy
directive means, there are no critical integration needs being served
by this policy dictum, and it can be safely removed.
manoj
--
You will probably marry after a very brief courtship.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Reply to: