[I'm not subscribed to -policy, please respect M-F-t or Cc me] Hi all,
early this year, some guidelines for the handling of orig.tar.gz files for Debian packages were discussed on debian-devel (http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/01/msg01796.html). I have tried to write together what seemed to be a consensus on that, and submitted it as a wishlist bug (#278524) to the Developer's Reference. A new version of the added section, 6.1, is available (slightly updated compared to the original patch) at http://people.debian.org/~frank/ch-best-pkging-practices.en.html There are some points, however, that are unclear, or where no consensus was achieved. I would be glad to receive some feedback on the following points: 1. Should this be included in the Developer's Reference, or shouldn't (parts of) it rather be included in Debian Policy? If you think it should be in Policy, would it be appropriate to include it in the Developer's Reference as long as Policy is frozen pre-sarge? The main discussion on the list back then was about reasons for repackaging, namely whether the need to add or change binary files is a reason to create a new orig.tar.gz file. In the new section 6.1.3, I have tried to summarise the different possibilities mentioned without giving one of them preference. However, this is inconsistent with the following sentence in 6.1.2 that I adopted from Henning for the description of "repackaged upstream source": ,---- | A repackaged .orig.tar.gz [...] must not contain any file that does not | come from the upstream author(s), or whose contents has been changed by | you. `---- This poses the following questions: 2. Do you think that - although alternative methods exist - a binary file may be changed or added by creating a new orig.tar.gz file? Or do you think this must be done by adding a uuencode'd file (or similar) in diff.gz? 3. If you think a binary change is a reason for a new orig.tar.gz, do you think the sentence cited above should get an exception for binary files, or should it rather be dropped or rephrased completely? [Note also the footnote the sentence has] 4. What is the right place to document the changes made to the orig.tar.gz file? Some possible places would be - the get-orig-source target in debian/rules (see Policy 4.8) - a README.Debian-source in the debian directory (i.e. in the diff.gz) - a README.Debian-source file added to the orig.tar.gz Personally, I think that the last possibility should be a requirement. The main reason is that I think that our archive should be a good source for Free Software even when one does not want to use the Debian Operating System (and indeed we provide lots of mirrors for software with no or only a couple of mirrors). It would be annoying if one had to download the diff.gz just in order to learn what was changed in the orig.tar.gz file. Having the get-orig-source target is nice, but there might be cases where this is impractical. One final question: I'd like to have a footnote at the beginning of the new 6.1.3, explaining a simple case where it is necessary to add or change a binary file. I can imagine several, but I'd like to have one that can be explained in one or two short sentences without lengthy discussions about DFSG-freeness or non-automated generation of pdf files or whatever. Suggestions? Thanks for reading, Frank -- Frank Küster Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich Debian Developer
