Re: Environment variables, debian/rules and dpkg-buildpackage
On Sun, May 10 2009, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 11:37:46PM +0300, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On Sunday 10 May 2009 13:56:04 Steve Langasek wrote:
>> > I thought it was generally recognized that it's a Bad Idea to implement
>> > config files using your interpreter's 'include' functionality, but that's
>> > basically what we have here.
>
>> Guillem pointed out one problem: Either you do it via a make include (which
>> you have issues with), or you stop supporting calling debian/rules directly
>> (inconvenient, probably prone to break things)
>
> I don't agree that "dpkg-buildpackage sets additional environment
> variables to implement a distro/site policy for builds" implies
> "calling debian/rules directly is unsupported". Or maybe I've
> misunderstood, and there are Debian developers who are building
> official packages for *upload* by calling debian/rules by hand, and
> that's what people are concerned about preserving while still getting
> the benefits of these distro build flags?
The only builds Debian supports are not just the buildd ones. As
members of the free software community, we should also cater to end
users building, tweaking, and rebuilding our software.
If the behaviour of the package is substantively different when
we use or not use dpkg-buildpackage, it would be a clear violation of
the principle of least surprise.
> I hadn't considered that possibility, because I can't imagine anyone
> wanting to build packages that way instead of using dpkg-buildpackage,
> which does it all in a single command. So I really don't consider
> that an important use case, weighed against the concerns I outlined.
If you take the self centered approach that Debian cares only
about the binary packages, and does not cater to end users also
building packages, sure, it is not an important use case.
I would prefer Debian to remain a full fledged member of the free
software community, and continue to not let build behaviour diverge
whether or not dpkg-buildpackage was used -- which can be a substancial
resource hog for multiple binary source packages.
manoj
--
When you were born, a big chance was taken for you.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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