Hi Leo, Well, first let me say that I didn't know about your ITP [1]. I just saw now that your page is the one linked from the gaim-encryption website, that I actually had seen before.
I decided to make my own gaim-encryption package, since: 1) I thought it would be something useful to have in the main Debian repository (remember that I did not know that you had any intention in officially packaging it) 2) I really wanted a plugin package and not a combined package. I have several gaim-plugins and don't want to have one gigantic package with all possible plugins... then there would not be much advantage to the pluggable architecture, would there? You're right about the gaim headers: it would be much nicer to have a gaim-dev package (that's why I also wrote to the gaim maintainers). But, since it is not there and it won't be there in the near future we're better off being pragmatic and transition to the ideal solution when it's possible. Perfection is nice, but I rather prefer to have a pragmatic but working solution than none. In response to your three points: 1) only when the gaim plugin APIs change (and they should be backwards compatible throughout the 1.x.y versions), so that is not such a big problem 2) right, in an ideal world 3) no, see further When I made the package, I came to the conclusion that the missing gaim-dev is not the main problem. The compile options used by the Debian gaim maintainers were. They namely used --disable-nss, which breaks gaim-encryption. I contacted both the gaim maintainers as the gaim-encryption developer about this. The gaim-encryption developer was very helpful and adapted the upstream program so that it now initializes nss itself when nss is disabled and makes sure it doesn't get initialized twice when nss is enabled. So, no, it is not a Debian-only patch. It is a solution to the incorrect assumption the nobody would compile gaim with --disable-nss. This is now in the default upstream release. Btw, I would have contacted you if I knew you were serious about adding your package to the main repository... I certainly did not try to package it behind your back, I did make an ITP and talked about it with the gaim maintainers and the upstream developer. None of them told me about your efforts. So, in short: I still think gaim-encryption is a very useful package to have in Debian, and no I don't think my package is a 'hacky' one. Sorry about the bad communication, though, that was my fault... I should have looked harder for a possible ITP bug. Cheers, Chris. [1] I (incorrectly) thought searching for gaim-encryption on http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ would give me the ITP bugs too... --- On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 14:22, Leo "Costela" Antunes wrote: > Hi > > On Seg, 2004-10-18 at 05:06, Chris Vanden Berghe wrote: > > I've been in contact with the gaim developers who seem to be reluctant > > to add a gaim-dev package in the near future (they are considering an > > experimental package, though). Therefore, I think it is better to go > > ahead and just ship a copy of the gaim headers until the gaim-dev is > > available. Btw, the original ITP is more than one year old... > > Shipping Gaim's headers with gaim-encryption's source is a bad idea, > IMHO, for three reasons: > 1:You'll have to sync it with Gaim for every new version and you'll have > non-working plugins in the meantime between gaim's upload and your > upload > 2:Gaim's headers don't belong in gaim-encryption, they belong in gaim. > 3:Your source will be different from upstream (at least if I understand > you correctly) > > My ITP is more then one year old because I believe any other solution > that's been suggested this far to be a kludge. > > > I've also been in contact with the upstream author who, at my request, > > has altered his plugin especially for Debian. The Debian gaim package > > is namely compiled with --disable-nss. Thanks to this change, this > > version of the plugin can be used without altering the gaim package > > (before it could only be shipped as gaim+gaim-encryption, now it's a > > real plugin). > > What change was this, exactly? Did he port the whole NSS+NSPR code from > Gaim to gaim-encryption? > Has this change been applied to the normally distributed source or is it > a debian-hack-only? > > > I think people would really like a gaim-encryption plugin package in the > > main Debian repository... > > Yes, I can assume that by the number of emails I get about it, but that > doesn't justify including a hacky package, IMHO. > > I'm sorry if I sound rude, but I've been packaging gaim-encryption for a > while now and would find it polite to be informed about such plans. > (Yes, I have all that fatherly crap about packages I work on) > From what I've understood, I don't particularly like your plan, but > you're free to try to convince me, prove me wrong, or just ignore me and > upload it anyway. > > Cheers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
