On 27 January 2013 18:32, Gergely Nagy <alger...@balabit.hu> wrote: > Jakub Wilk <jw...@debian.org> writes: > >> Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote on his blog[0]: >> >>> Generally if software is useful in Debian Project it can be useful >>> for other debian-like and unlike projects. In particular native >>> packages do not offer the same patching flexibility as 3.0 (quilt), >>> thus forcing downstream distributions to inline modify packages >>> without DEP-3 >>> headers. This hurts us, when trying to merge useful stuff from >>> derivatives back into Debian, as changes are not split into >>> individual patches. >> >> I would tend to agree that we have too many native packages, though I >> doubt you'll find (m)any supporters of the idea of banning them >> completely. > > There are two native packages I maintain, and I've yet to hear a good > reason for making either of them non-native. Making it harder and much > much more inconvenient for downstream distributions to modify them is a > *goal* in these cases: to make it harder to diverge from one > another. > > As for no DEP-3? I do sincerely hope that by 2013, everyone's using a > VCS, and we can pick patches from there. >
If only we all can agree on the VCS to use. A patch seems to be the common denominator. Also, there are a lot of caveats with DVSC. I have seen a lot of repositories where maintainers forgot to push commits and/or tags. Or obsolete Vcs-* headers, because repository got moved, yet there was no upload yet. And that's easy to do, since the thing you upload to ftp doesn't check/require for you to push anything. NMUs & security uploads are often also missing from Vcs-* repositories. Native packages is a social issue =) my view is that they set a bad example and introduce a lot of "do this, unless it's native package". Also some of the convenience stated, benefits Debian, but hurts dowstream. As any packaging change, triggers a new .orig.tar.gz with a new checksum. Regards, Dmitrijs. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CANBHLUjqBX8k=ddrlhpufddj_6q3dsfvmiaj_vc_xepvhf-...@mail.gmail.com
