In <135eeb1d0906250600y552b3c5du980a01d3e3d3e...@mail.gmail.com>, Juan Jesús Ojeda Croissier wrote: >On 24 jun, 21:40, "Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <b...@iguanasuicide.net> wrote: >> In <135eeb1d0906241156q69cfcf9fqeb7bfbe733ddc...@mail.gmail.com>, Juan >> Jesús >> Ojeda Croissier wrote: >> >> * The version numbering is for "native package" without reason. >> > >> >Well, this is a native package, I think. >> >> If you can think of *any* reason that openSUSE, Fedora, or Gentoo would >> want to use the software (albeit with different packaging) you should >> use normal (non-native) packaging. > >This software was created for a Debian-derived distribution >(Guadalinex). Maybe it's possible to change the packaging or compile >from the sources, but it wasn't the initial idea and it is not >supported by us. It is software for a Debian-derived distributions.
It doesn't matter if you thought about doing it, or if you support it. The is free software (right?), so someone could take it upon themselves to package and support it for a non-Debian-derived distribution. If that even makes sense, then the package should be a normal (non-native) package. Even if the package is quite Debian-specific, if it is possible to separate the "packaging" from the "software" there are other advantages to normal (non-native) packaging. Out of the 45 packages that start with "apt", most of which would be fairly useless in a non-Debian-derived distribution, less than half are native. Using very rough methods, it looks like only 1044 out of 26923 packages available in main (stable+security+volatile+testing+testing- security+unstable+experimental) are native and I'll wager some of those could be usefully converted to normal packaging. >Probably, if more distros (Debian, Ubuntu, LinEx, Molinux and others >Debian-derived distributions) start to use it and we see other distros >like to use it, we'll convert it into upstream project (maybe in >GNOME) and the package will be changed into non-native one. Converting back and forth is even worse than being a native package. If there's a possibility that the package could be usefully converted into a normal (non-native) package in the future, that is reason *enough* to have it be a normal (non-native) package now. >But by now >we can't assure that the code itself will work in another distro. We >haven't tried it, neither we have prepared it for supporting it. No one is asking you to. >If you guys still see this as a non-native package, we'll change it, >but IMHO, at least right now, it is a native package. No, it shouldn't be a native package. I'll admit that the rules are a bit subjective. However, "I don't want to bother packaging for any other distribution right now" is definitely *NOT* a reason to to make the package native. Normal (non-native) packaging is the default; you need a good reason to make the package native. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. b...@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
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