Bug#88111: policy should not dictate implementation details

[kaih@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen)]

wichert@cistron.nl (Wichert Akkerman)  wrote on 01.03.01 in <[🔎] 20010301152221.B26147@cistron.nl>:

> I'll make this a proposal then:
>
>   Section 5.2 of policy currently dictates that debian/rules has to be
>   a makefile. While this is good practice, the only thing that is essential
>   is that it is an executable that will respond to the build, clean,
>   binary, binary-arch and binary-indep targets.
>
>   As such I propose that the statement that debian/rules has be to a
>   makefile be removed.

I formally object to this proposal, on the grounds that it is a completely  
useless complication of the process.

There's nothing you can do with a non-makefile executable that you can't  
just as easily do by invoking that executable from the makefile, and this  
other executable will never be able to emulate all of make's behaviour.

In short, it buys us exactly nothing except for trouble.


MfG Kai