Bug#461751: contextfree deb

[Bram Senders <bram@luon.net>]

On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 16:53 +0100, Joachim Breitner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Am Samstag, den 07.02.2009, 15:06 +0100 schrieb Bram Senders:
> > I remember what the problem was; contextfree contains a copy of portions
> > of the source of the AntriGrain Geometry library, which is in Debian as
> > libagg-dev.  This is not allowed as of Debian Policy 3.8.0 (although I
> > think the package would now be okay as per Policy 3.7.3).
> > 
> > However, I don't understand how to remove the agg portions from the
> > contextfree source, because of two reasons:
> > 
> >      1. The agg .cpp files are used by the contextfree Makefile to
> >         produce .d files.  But I cannot reproduce this using the
> >         libagg-dev package, as this only includes the headers and
> >         some .a files.
> >      2. The contextfree Makefile compiles the agg files into .o and
> >         links using them, but libagg-dev only provides the .a files.
> > 
> > All in all, I simply know too little about building these kinds of
> > things to be able to get this working properly.  I have a working
> > version of the contextfree 2.2 Debian package up on
> > http://rabarber.luon.net/~bram/Debian/contextfree/, but this builds
> > using the internal copy of the agg sources.  Anyone care to help fix
> > this?  Joachim, Paul?
> > 
> > Or is it allowed to upload a package using an outdated Debian Policy?
> 
> if your build is doing something special to the sources, it is no longer
> a “convenience copy” (or at least it can be argued that this is the
> case).
> 
> I’d suggest you upload the package, with policy 3.8.0, and note in
> debian/copyright or debian/README.source the reasons you are using the
> included agg code. Then you should file a wishlist bug against
> libagg-dev if it is possible for them to ship the required .d files, so
> that eventually you can make use of that. Mention the bugreport number
> in your explanation. I think this should satisfy the requirements by the
> policy.
> 
> Note that even policy is not a set of rules that are absolute, but a
> description of common and approved practice – if there are valid reasons
> to diverge from them, then do it.

Okay, thanks, I got it!  I managed to link it to the library in
libagg-dev anyway, but still used contextfree's copy of the libagg
header files, because these were changed significantly, and I mentioned
this in debian/README.source as you said.  Now Paul can upload this, and
hopefully it'll actually get in Debian this time ;-)

Thanks for the help and motivation!

Bram