Re: [DEP 12]: Why debian/upstream and not debian/control.
On Sat, 2013-01-05 at 16:47:20 +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Le Thu, Jan 03, 2013 at 10:29:13AM +0800, Paul Wise a écrit :
> > This DEP-12 seems to exist because of this assumption. Is it true that
> > everything from debian/control must end up in the Packages files?
> In our effort of collecting bibliographic information for the scientific Pure
> Blends, we are currently writing the metadata in the source packages
> themselves, in a file called debian/upstream. Whether it should really be in
> the source package itself or outside can be discussed, but I would like this
> question to be out of the scope of DEP 12, and focus this DEP on the format.
Well I do think this is really in scope, where this data is kept and
who is the target audience is very relevant in deciding what format
might be most appropriate, which would appear as secondary to that
first question.
If this was to be stored in a central place, similar to the debtags
data, then the format does not really matter as it can always be
imported and exported in any way desired.
If the intention is for this to possibly be adopted by upstreams
themselves so that they can maintain and ship them in their releases,
then the current format does not seem appropriate when there are
existing proposals around, for example DOAP. Working with the
existing solutions/standards instead of creating yet another one
and trying to extend them if they have current deficiencies would
seem more helpful overall than creating more divergence.
If this is intended purely to be included in Debian packages, then as
mentioned before, the better option IMO is to use the current format
used on those packages, to ease any possible interchange of data, or
handling by existing packaging tools or frontends (w/o needing to add
a dependency on a YAML parser, just for this one file).
Thanks,
Guillem
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