On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 09:59:40AM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote: > The policy wording was hardcoded like that basically because Manoj is overly > attached to make, we had long and unfruitful discussions about it (I forget > the bug number, search the archives), and no actual practical reason to > change this has ever been demonstrated. > > Well, there's one - I can't upload a new version because Joerg decided some > time ago to be similarly anal, too. > > It's all a big, silly exercise in stubbornness. It must be a makefile! > It doesn't matter if there's no practical purpose to it, it still must be! > It *must*!
I understand the inertial argument here; it feels bad to have to change without a clear reason being given to you. On the other hand, at this point there is also inertia attached to the fact that every single other package in Debian (according to http://lintian.debian.org/tags/debian-rules-not-a-makefile.html) has debian/rules as a Makefile. Would you mind explaining here why you feel it is important to retain the flexibility of multiple implementation languages for debian/rules? I can provide a concrete practical reason for requiring make as the implementation language: at least one, probably two, of the options for build-arch handling (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=629385#93) require debian/rules to be a Makefile. The leave package might be able to get away with a little bit more if its exit code matched that of make for nonexisting targets, mentioned in policy 4.9; however, it exits 1 rather than 2 in this case. I realise that this may be because you are unable to upload new versions with the shell implementation. Even if we end up not doing target autodetection for build-arch, it seems clear that having the option of doing so is useful, and that there is a cost to the project associated with every discussion on the subject having to consider the single exception where tools like 'make -qn' won't work. I think we should only allow that exception if there is a corresponding benefit to doing so, beyond inertia. Regards, -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@debian.org] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
