Bug#543417: README.source patch system documentation requirements considered harmful
On Tue, Sep 08, 2009 at 12:48:25AM +0100, Chris Lamb wrote:
> Wouter Verhelst wrote:
>
> > I would instead suggest changing the next paragraph to something like
> > the following:
> >
> > ``In case a package uses a build system for which documentation
> > sufficient to satisfy this requirement exists in a file installed by one
> > of the package's build dependencies, this file should be referred to
> > from the README.source file, rather than copied into it.''
> [..]
> > Such phrasing will result in README.source files saying
> >
> > "This package uses quilt, as documented in
> > /usr/share/doc/quilt/README.source"
>
> Whilst I quite like the idea of allowing source documentation to be
> satisfied by build dependencies, a single-line README.source still has all
> the drawbacks I originally filed this bug about.
>
> That is to say, the existence of your README.source file would still be a
> false-positive when looking at the package with respect to whether it is
> esoteric in some way. Raphael Geissert also argues this in #73.
>
> But would such a pointer be valuable enough to mitigate these concerns? For
> a newbie, the answer might very well be "yes". However, this seems like a
> weak and relatively rare case to optimise for, compounded by the high cost
> of excessive false-positives.
It is valuable, because there are various way to use dpatch, quilt etc.
in packaging, some of them let the source ready after unpacking, some
of them not. A statement the package is following a specific interface
is far reliable than just assuming that a build-dependency imply an
interface which is not true.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
Reply to: