> -----Original Message----- > From: Jason Gunthorpe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > THEORETICALLY, if a user downloads the source and does a > simple compile they > > SHOULD get the same binaries produced as the developer did. > This assumes > > that they are using the standard compiler and libraries in > the particular > > This is a common assumption and is wrong. The most popular > use of apt-get > source -b has been to make stable compiles of unstable > packages. Rather > than some source tweak.
Why would they want to do this? I usually run a completely unstable system, that is rather stable BTW, so don't understand why someone who runs a stable system would want to "lie" about a package being stable when, in fact, it is unstable. Without an explanation that I can't fathom at the moment, I'd have to put that in the category of "stupid things people CAN do that we shouldn't necessarily protect them from doing." I mean, be realistic. If it's unstable then it's unstable. Ah, I thought of something. Say they only have the stable locations in their sources list. In that case it would show up as unknown/local in dselect or possibly some other category. Well, if I personally was going to do something like that then I'd create a local cache of the unstable (binary) packages and keep the unstable packages that I installed in that directory, which would be in my source list. Now some may consider this over burdensome. But, why can't a "default" deb packages directory be included in the standard distribution and automatically searched so that the only thing you had to do was put the deb file in the right location? Or, is it so evil and undesirable to have unstable packages that are installed on a stable system show up as "unknown" (or whatever) in dselect? So just do nothing and let them show up as unknown. That would be my vote, if I had one. Leave the current system alone and let them show up as unknown. At least it would flag you to check the unstable sources once in a while to see if the unstable version of the package was upgraded. > In this case bumping the version is actually bad because you > want to get > the unstable binary version when you eventually do upgrade. As I said earlier it could be a sub-version so that the next version upgrade in unstable would get them the proper version. More of a "user version" suffix rather than actually bumping the developer's version number. (I hope no one is getting the impression that I'm trying to be over-argumentative over this. I'm not usually active on this list, but this topic piqued my interest.) Fred Reimer Eclipsys Corporation
