On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 12:37:45AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 07:51:00PM +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote: > > Le lundi 18 octobre 2004 à 19:22 +0200, Wesley W. Terpstra a écrit : > > > So, when it comes time to release this and include it in a .deb, I ask > > > myself: what would happen if I included (with the C source and ocaml > > > compiler) some precompiled object files for i386? As long as the build > > > target is i386, these object files could be linked in instead of using > > > gcc to produce (slower) object files. This would mean a 2* speedup for > > > users, which is vital in order to reach line-speed. Other platforms > > > recompile as normal. > > > > > > On the other hand, is this still open source? > > > Is this allowed by policy? > > > Can this go into main? > > > > Main must be built with only packages from main. > > No, that's not true. > > In addition, the packages in _main_ > * must not require a package outside of _main_ for compilation or > execution (thus, the package must not declare a "Depends", > "Recommends", or "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-_main_ > package), > > There's a difference, which is crucial. ICC may not be Free Software, > policy does not say you must only use Free Software to build a package; > it says you must not /require/ a package outside main to build it. > > The difference is subtle, but crucial. > > Wesley's software can be built using software in main. It will not be as > fast, but it will still do its job, flawlessly, without loss of > features, with the ability to modify the software to better meet one's > needs if so required.
"The package must not require a outside of main for compilation". You can't take the source, compile it with a proprietary compiler and upload the result to main, because in order to create that package, you need a non-free compiler. The fact that you can also compile the sources with a free compiler is irrelevant; non-free tools are still required to create the package actually in main. Policy doesn't say "you must be be able to build a package similar to the one in main using tools in main"; it says "the package in main must be buildable with tools in main". -- Glenn Maynard