Bug#986320: Stronger advice on when to use native packages

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Russ Allbery wrote:

> Currently, Debian Policy is silent on when it's appropriate to use a
> native package, but there may be a project consensus aganist using
> native packages when the software has an existence outside of Debian.

I agree about this (modulo the bits discussed elsewhere in this bug
about using native packages as a workaround to issues with the format
of non-native packages).

> Even if that consensus does not exist, there is probably consensus
> that native packages are a poor match for large packages (because of
> the inefficiency of making small updates to the packaging of native
> packages),

Do you mean large packages with a separate upstream existence, or
large packages in general?  I don't think there's such a consensus for
large packages in general: if Debian is the canonical place for a
particular package to be released (e.g., as is true for dpkg), then it
doesn't seem like it would be worth the overhead of making two
releases, one upstream and one for packaging, whenever updating that
package.

[...]
> (See #542288 for some of this discussion.)

Because I'm lazy: :) that's a pretty long bug --- did you have a
particular comment in it in mind?

Thanks,
Jonathan