DEITY TEAM: Minor query re: .deb format

[" Raymond A. Ingles" <inglesra@frc.com>]

 Just out of curiosity, why did Debian decide to use a .deb package 
format, as opposed to, say, a "debian_control" file inside the .tar 
archive? So far as I can see:

 PROS:
  ".deb" format allows easy ID of packages that can be installed on 
Debian systems.

 CONS:
  Cannnot use the Debianized package without dpkg.
  Difficult to "unDebianize".
  Twice the effort of maintenance - either developer must release two 
versions or a separate (and possibly out-of-synch) package maintainer 
must be recruited.

 Using the universally (well, Unixversally) supported .tar standard has 
only one con that I can see - you have to at least use "tar -t" to see if 
the package has been Debianized. This seems a small price to pay to avoid 
the other disadvantages.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles             (810) 377-7735            inglesra@frc.com

 If all the muscles in your body pulled in the same direction, you
 could lift over twenty tons. But you'd walk funny. - L. M. Boyd


--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-user-request@lists.debian.org . 
Trouble?  e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .