Matthias Urlichs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> many packages seem to contain .orig.tar.gz files which may or may not be
> directly related to the files actually available from upstream. That is
> unfortunate.
>
> I think that it would make sense to add a requirement to Policy that
> the .orig.tar.gz file should be an unmodified copy from upstream.
This would be virtually impossible for most of my dict-*
packages. There are several categories of problems with including
true .orig.tar.gz files with these packages:
1- dict-wn. The original package shipped as a tarball containing the
sources of the formatting software plus partial sources of the WordNet
database. When new versions of WordNet have been released, I have
extracted the requisite files from the upstream tarball and inserted
them into the ../data directory, replacing the ones originally
distributed with the package. I create a ".orig.tar.gz" from this
directory.
2- dict-gcide. The original package was shipped as two tarballs - one
for the formatting software and one for the dictionary database. The
data tarball had to be unpacked into a subdirectory of the directory
contained in the first tarball. When new versions are released, I put
the new database in the directory and create a ".orig.tar.gz" from
this.
3- dict-misc (original). The original package contained the sources
for an early version of dictfmt and three dictionary databases -
jargon, foldoc, easton, hitchcock, and elements. The first two are
revised regularly, the last two seldom or never. Retaining the
original structure would have required rebuilding all 5 dictionaries
whenever one was revised. To deal with this, I created a separate
package for dictfmt, which has subsequently been included in the dict
package, and treated the individual dictionaries as described in the
next section.
4- My other dictionary packages are distributed as .tgz, .zip, or
plain text files. Typically, the upstream editors/compilers of these
databases are interested in lexicography or in the specific subject
the database relates to, and not in programming. Generally, these
unpack in ./, not in a directory named for the package. For these, I
create a directory <package_name>-<version>, unpack the data sources
into it, and make a ".orig.tar.gz" from this. This is the closest I
come to pristine sources in any of the dict-* packages.
dictd, of course, is a conventional program, containing a source
tree, with auto-configuration files, makefiles, header files, etc. so
creating the .orig.tar.gz consists of renaming the upstream tarball.
All of this is, of course, documented in my changelogs. A strict
requirement that the .orig.tar.gz file should be an unmodified copy
from upstream would be impossible to satisfy for most of my packages.
Regards,
Bob
--
_
|_) _ |_ Robert D. Hilliard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
|_) (_) |_) 1294 S.W. Seagull Way <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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