Re: overhaul of the debian ocaml policy
Le 23/08/2010 11:13, Ralf Treinen a écrit :
>>>> Whenever you patch the source, IMHO, you limit the patch to:
>>>> - fix the build system to make it compile on Debian (source -> binary
>>>> package, new OCaml version)
>>>> - fix security bugs
>>>
>>> Certainly not. We do add features (I am speaking here of debian packages
>>> in general, not only of ocaml libraries), and we fix things that are
>>> broken.
Not any feature. I would tend to agree with Sylvain on this one. It may
cause portability issues with non-Debian users, and can make the
packaging harder to maintain and update (see advi, for example).
> [...] The bug fixes and the code are communicated to
> upstream, who usually will use them (but a fixed release will be
> published much later), or something doesn't agree.
If the patch is committed upstream, then I guess it's ok to put it in
the Debian package if it is backward compatible somehow... but still,
care should be taken and I wouldn't do that if I wasn't following
upstream development more than for my average package.
Upstream development should be done upstream (I don't say that the
packager should not contribute...). A package is perfect when the
packaging is trivial and there are no patches.
Cheers,
--
Stéphane
Reply to: