[Sugar-devel] [SoaS] Policy for activities for downstream inclusion

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 07:28:05AM -0500, David Farning wrote:
>On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Sascha Silbe
><sascha-ml-reply-to-2010-3 at silbe.org> wrote:
>> Excerpts from Simon Schampijer's message of Tue Sep 14 16:14:08 +0200 
>> 2010:
>>
>>> >> In the .deb side of the universe, we prefer tarballs but we can 
>>> >> work directly from the git repository.
>>>
>>> We should not go from the git repository. Either use the .xo or a 
>>> tarball.
>>
>> Why? And who is "we" in this case?
>
>For the entire 'why' I will have to refer you to the the Debain mailing 
>lists. /me ducks The short answer is Debian packaging is premised on 
>the idea of a 'pristine source' which historically has been a publicly 
>available tarball.  Over the last couple of years Jonas has modified 
>the CDBS (Common Debian Build System) to grab from a properly tagged 
>git repo.

I want to clarify a bit here:

Debian still very much favor tarballs.  If upstreams do not ship 
tarballs, we need to create a tarball ourselves as part of our packaging 
efforts.

This is bad in my opinion, as there is a higher risk of introducing 
errors that can go unnoticed: If repackaging accidentally adds, alters 
or skips some files, then the distributor is unlikely to notice because 
it is treated as upstream code, and obviously upstream is unlikely to 
notice too since in fact the (altered) code never appeared upstream.

For the Sugar packages in Debian I have gone beyond the minimal 
requirements in Debian (which includes that mandatory tarball!) in also 
tracking upstream Git.  I do *not* like redistributing directly from 
Git, and have in the past raised my concern about David Farning and his 
team of Ubuntu developers packaging directly from Git rather than 
pushing upstream (i.e. you Sugar guys) to always release tarballs.


>'We' is anyone interested in having their activity packages accepted 
>into Debain.

He he - I do that typo too.  I even mistype my own name as Joans :-)


  - Jonas

-- 
  * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
  * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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