Neil Williams <codeh...@debian.org> writes: > Ben Finney <b...@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > > Wouter Verhelst <wou...@debian.org> writes: > > > If a dependency and a symlink exists, however, it's clear that the > > > maintainer meant to say "source is over there". > > As I've tried to show above, "over there" is not helpful. "over there" > can go away, can be updated and cannot be verified as the actual code > needed by the package. "over there" doesn't help anyone fix installs > on older boxes which have suddenly stopped working.
I think Wouter is referring to “over there” as the destination of the symlink. In other words, this isn't a proposal for linking outside Debian for the source; the hypothetical symlink is to a file provided by some other Debian package. > > The maintainer may intend [an assertion that the source for some > > non-source form is found in a different Debian package] to be true. > > Without independent automated verification, we are merely guessing > > and hoping. How can we verify independently that no such assertion > > is false? I've described a means that is certain and simple: discard > > the non-source form from the source package. > > Agreed, the source package needs to contain the JS in the preferred > form for modification. *If* that is provided by a package at a > supported version, then a symlink can be used (and a versioned > dependency if the version matters as it does in some of my usecases). > > From upstream perspective, provide the JS in the form preferred for > modification and minify during the package build. That is much preferable, I agree. It's unfortunate that many upstream projects consider “the package build” of so little importance that they provide *only* a non-source form of third-party files, expecting that no recipient cares to get the full source. We need to respectfully educate them that this is not enough. -- \ “Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why | `\ is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has | _o__) evolved to do.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/857g5xetpf....@benfinney.id.au
