Re: what if upstream provides debian build directory
On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 07:46:46PM +0000, The Fungi wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 08:21:44PM +0100, Harald Dunkel wrote:
> > What is Debian's policy, if upstream provides its own debian directory
> > or package build procedure?
>
> Not ignored at all... maintainers who find an upstream debian
> directory getting in the way (and who are unable to successfully
> convince upstream of the inconvenience)
Presence of that dir means someone happens to care about providing
debianized packages to their users. Why would that be a bad thing?
You can either take (and possibly improve) their packaging, or throw it
away. With format 3.0, it's strictly non-harmful, and with a modicum of
clue on the side of upstream, beneficial.
> usually either repackage the upstream source to remove it, or use v3
> packaging format which clears and replaces it with the contents of the
> maintainer's files when unpacking.
The 3.0 format has a number of upsides and one downside: quilt. Sadly, the
variants are only 3.0 (native) which doesn't apply and 3.0 (quilt). The
latter interacts disastrously with keeping the packaging under version
control -- and the very idea of _not_ using version control today is quite
ridiculous.
But fortunately it's simple to turn 3.0 (quilt) into 3.0 (sane): adding
"rm -rf .pc debian/patches" to the "clean" rule gives you something that's
effectively 1.0 format with all the goodies of 3.0.
Thus, there's no reason to not use 3.0 whatsoever.
--
1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor:
// Never attribute to stupidity what can be
// adequately explained by malice.
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