On Tue, Dec 18, 2018, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Hi Peter, > > Peter Schaffter wrote on Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 08:55:04PM -0500: > > > I've updated mom-2.4.tar.gz on mom's website, > > Never change tarballs after they are released.
> That causes bad trouble to downstream packagers: The tarballs aren't, and never have been, for packagers. The "distinct from groff" nature of mom development means that any "packaged" version will be the one from contrib/mom when groff is built. Tarballs are posted so users can update mom without having to pull groff from the development branch. The two (i.e. contrib/mom and the tarballs) are always in synch, but packagers are not expected to use the tarballs, and indeed, none have. Every once in a while, as presently, mom presents a bug whose fix is so small that it doesn't warrant a version change but does need to be made available to run-of-the-mill users immediately. A patch applied to version N.N rather than a release of version N.N-x, as it were. In such cases--extremely rare--the patch is applied to the development branch of groff/contrib/mom and the "users' tarball" is silently updated. Since no one is packaging mom for shipment separately from groff, concerns about downstream packaging aren't relevant. Mom began life entirely separate of groff because of groff's slow release cycle. I got a couple of requests from Debianites wanting to package her, and a proposal from Werner that she become part of groff. I chose the latter despite the headache of the groff-packaged version perpetually lagging behind the latest mom release, a problem solved by posting the tarballs. Though mildly unconventional, this pragmatic solution has worked without a hitch for over ten years. -- Peter Schaffter http://www.schaffter.ca
