Bug#544981: debian-policy: Discourage native packages that are not tightly specific to Debian
On Fri, Sep 04 2009, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> Given the recent thread in debian-devel[1], I think we should document in
> policy that packages that are not tightly related to Debian shouldn't be
> native.
This was my understanding, though I se that policy never states
that explicitly. (However, policy is not exhaustive either, and things
are added as the need arises). I note that the first hit for Native in
policy states:
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been written
especially for Debian) whose version numbers include dates should
always use the "YYYYMMDD" format.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
Admittedly, this is in a section talking about version numbers
based on dates.
> The motivations for discouraging native packages not Debian specific are
> that it makes it harder for other parties to make advantage of it. For
> example, they would find new "upstream" releases that fixed Debian
> packaging bugs, or that were NMUs. Also, where should they report bugs?
> In bugs.debian.org?
Right. And what if the maintinership passes to a non-dd? Policy
remarks on this in a informational footnote:
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
[2] Although there is nothing stopping an author who is also the Debian
maintainer from using this changelog for all their changes, it will
have to be renamed if the Debian and upstream maintainers become
different people. In such a case, however, it might be better to
maintain the package as a non-native package.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> Native packages make sense when the package is pretty much only useful
> for Debian (and Debian derivatives), e.g. dpkg or apt, but not for
> unrelated packages.
Sounds good to me.
manoj
--
The farther you go, the less you know. Lao Tsu, "Tao Te Ching"
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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