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Re: [DEP5] Asking for common wisdom on new field(s): References*



Hi Charles,

Thanks for the follow up.

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010, Charles Plessy wrote:
> I really think that this information should be in another file...

well, in general I do not mind; but yet 'another file' might introduce
more cons than pros

N.B. uff... and who is saying all these? the one who just recently
     announced the existence of debian/blends [1]... pardon my blunt
     beginning ;)

> Would you be interested in this approach ?

Well, I would adopt any approach really which would be somewhat
transparent and easy to use for us (debian maintainers):
 
 * easy to embed existing references
 * not necessary to duplicate information across multiple files
 * maintain ability for 2 liner debian/rules ;)

and for the users:

 * reference should be in 'ready to use' format and ideally readily
   available (so no cp, or cut/paste necessary for each individual
   reference)

 * so may be we could even compile for them easily the
   "Debian upstream references" bibliography

 as a consequence, complete pipeline should avoid too much of
 conversion, i.e.

 COMMON_REFERENCE_FORMAT1 (used by upstream) -> UNIFIED_DEBIAN_FORMAT (used by us) -> COMMON_REFERENCE_FORMAT (used by users)

 especially if  there is an existing dominant 
 COMMON_REFERENCE_FORMAT1 == COMMON_REFERENCE_FORMAT2

 should ideally be avoided

> packages in our archive that contain it in debian/reference, debian/references
> or debian/upstream-metadata.yaml.

please point me to the representative package so I could have a look,
especially for debian/upstream-metadata.yaml in regards to the
wishes stated above.

I have ran into samstools, but that one has bulk of things duplicated
among control and upstream-metadata.yaml, and upstream-metadata.yaml and
reference

> http://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata

In general  I like this idea, BUT unfortunately I do not see it being
complete without avoiding duplication of information... unless
automated...

Let me elaborate:  due to the historical evolution of Debian
packaging we have already other files which one way or another do
contain 'UpstreamMetadata' -- control, copyright, watch are the most
"popular" ones.  With DEP5 copyright gets even closer to the content of
upstream-metadata.yaml, (just use Maintainer for Contact, more vague
Remark for Donation).  So what becomes left for upstream-metadata.yaml ?
seems to be primarily 'Reference's, which I logically placed into
existing copyright file (reasoning was included in original email why
this file is imho appropriate).

so... may be there should/could be

 * minimalistic debian/upstream-metadata.yaml.in just extending
   information from other files, not duplicating it
 * helper which generates a 'complete' debian/upstream-metadata.yaml
   and gets Ok'ed by Joey Hess to become a part of debhelper ;-)

uff... I guess I might have been already off-road... sorry ;) but
comments of cause are welcome and we could continue the discussion...

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-blends/2010/11/msg00020.html

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010, Charles Plessy wrote:

> Le Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 01:39:16PM -0500, Yaroslav Halchenko a écrit :
> > Dear DEP5 Committee ;)

> > In the light of previous discussions [1] and the presentation of our little
> > effort at debconf10 [2, 3 for PDF], and now following your recommendation
> > I am RFCing for References* fields to be used in DEP5-formatted copyright
> > files.  I foresee use of following fields:

> > References:
> >   free-form paragraph describing the references [e.g. 4]

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