Re: maximal or minimal deletion when creating dfsg tarball?

[Gergely Nagy <algernon@balabit.hu>]

Paul Elliott <pelliott@blackpatchpanel.com> writes:

> It has been suggested by a respected reviewer that while I am removing the 
> unsourced binaries, I remove ALL of the "convenience copies of code". That way 
> the unused code would not confuse anyone.
>
> I thought, that when creating a dfsg tarball, one should remove only the files 
> with licensing problems.
>
> What is the proper procedure? Remove only the unsourced binaries, or all of 
> the unused code?

I happen to be the 'remove as little as possible' camp, because I want
to keep my diffs with upstream to a minimum, and removing convenience
copies is too intrusive for my liking.

To avoid confusion, debian/README.source is a perfect place to explain
that the convenience copies are unused on Debian.

On the other hand, if you have to repack, you might as well create a
clean tarball too - that also has merit.

I do not think there's a single 'right' way to do it, both methods have
their pros and cons. I happen to think that the minimal changes approach
has more pros than the other.

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