Bug#673424: bbswitch packaging

[Vincent Cheng <vincentc1208@gmail.com>]

Hi,

First off, thanks for the bbswitch upload!

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 2:22 AM, Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@researchut.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday 20 March 2013 03:39 PM, Vincent Cheng wrote:
>> http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~b2c8/debian/pkg-nvidia/bumblebee_3.1-1.dsc
>>
>
> In debian/bumblebee.preinst: it states:
> If you are a novice, you are recommended to reinstall Ubuntu.

Upstream plans to drop that preinst file soon, since the old
bumblebee/debumblebee are obsolete anyways.

> Is this allowed by the Debian packaging guidelines?

Policy doesn't forbid it.

> Sharing is good but this is misleading both the product and brand.
> Derivatives are supposed to sync to the Debian archive and generate a
> delta. Typically the delta will be distro name changes et cetera.
> By adding derivative names (in this case Ubuntu) right into its pure
> package, this will create utter confusion.
>
> I'd urge you to package with only Debian in mind and let the derivatives
> handle it with a small delta.

I see no harm in trying to make my package compatible with both Debian
and Ubuntu, as long as the changes are not overly obtrusive and don't
break anything in Debian. I'm actually of the opinion that it's best
to minimize diffs between Debian and Ubuntu whenever possible, and I
aim to do that with all the packages I maintain. Forcing derivatives
to maintain deltas benefits nobody; we should encourage maintainers to
forward as much work upstream as possible, and that goes for Ubuntu's
relationship with Debian as well.

Regards,
Vincent