Re: GNUstep and /usr/GNUstep...
On Sat, 21 Feb 1998, Gregor Hoffleit wrote:
[snip]
> I had packaged a previous snapshot, but ran into similar problems. I
> came up with the issues on debian-policy, but got no responses. I second
> your observations: GNUstep is not compatible with FHS/FSSTND and it has
> good reasons to do so. Making it compliant with FSSTND is a major effort
> that tends to make GNUstep less attractive to developers.
First of all, the point is not to make our packages comply to the FSSTND
`just to make them FSSTND compliant', but because the common directory
structure has (hopefully :) some advantages.
Note, that we had a similar discussion with the KDE packages before. KDE
wanted to install into /opt. After the discussion, the KDE packages have
been changed by the Debian maintainer (this was surely a lot of work) but
I think it was worth it: IIRC, the KDE sources have been changed
_upstream_ to allow installation into the `distributed' directories more
easily. (Note, that I don't use KDE so this is just what I've been told--I
hope that it's not completely wrong :)
[I'm switching to `brain storming' mode now: please don't take all this
too seriously :-]
So why are all these `desktop environments' designed so that they _need_
to have everything in a single directory hierarchy? This looks to me as
they see themselves as `pure add-ons' to other operating systems/
distributions. Frankly speaking, this looks a bit like the `C:\WINDOWS'
approach: just add a new directory for your programs and you don't have to
worry about cooperation with other programs.
In the next step, we'll see GNUstep add-on packages which also need to
install into C:\WINDOWS^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H/usr/GNUstep. Is this a nice
solution??
> Second, a main problem with the current snapshot is that it depends on
> non-free software: The dgs snapshot has portions licensed by Aladdin
> according to the Aladdin Public License (similary to gs-aladdin).
> Therefore, most of the gstep packages had to go into contrib (a little
> bit strange given this is an official GNU project). This should change
> in the near future when dgs-5.20 is released under the conditions of the
> GPL (a snapshot by Peter Deutsch already is in the hands of the
> developer core team).
>
> Conclusion: I still feel responsible for packaging the GNUstep packages.
> Given the developer snapshot character of the current release, I don't
> know if there's a real use for those packages, and if it makes much
> sense to include them in Debian 2.0 in their current form. If you tell
> me so, I'd happily release packages of these snapshots in the next days.
Perhaps we can find a `temporary compromise' then: Since a) the packages
would have to go into `contrib' first (unless the new dgs is released) and
b) you said `you're not sure if they are really useful', why don't you
just release them to contrib and install everything into /usr/GNUstep for
a first release?
Note that by policy, packages in contrib are allowed to be `a bit
different' :)
With this solution, more people would be able to test your GNUstep
packages and we'd know `if the packages are useful at all,' while you
could try to work together with the upstream maintainers to make GNUstep
installable into `FSSTND' directories (which would be necessary to allow
the packages to go into the main distribution afterwards).
I'm very intrested in hearing your comments about this!
Thanks,
Chris
-- Christian Schwarz
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