Scott Ritchie skrev: > Agreed. The one tricky thing here is making a proper "source" package. > There is some precedent for source packages that don't actually build > on the architecture they're for. The ia32-libs package, for instance, > contains both binary and source versions of the 32 bit libraries since > it's solely for 64 bit arches, however to build those binaries requires > use of a 32 bit system. > > Similarly, we can ship a wine-gecko "source" package which includes > binary and source, with the readme detailing how to actually build the > binary from the source (ie, use Windows). Meanwhile the source package > "builds" by just copying the binary into the right place (much like how > ia32-libs builds).
Debian would not accept this into main. Perhaps into contrib, maybe. For example, DFSG-free Java programs that must be compiled with a non-free Java compiler (because the free compilers aren't good enough) goes into contrib, not main (though even here, it should be possible to auto-rebuild the package). Debian's ia32-libs package isn't an example of a whole lot. It grabs compiled binaries from the official Debian archive, and nowhere else. It isn't built on a 32-bit system. If ia32-libs had contained binaries that could not be built 100% automatically using Debian's official archive (and only the official archive), it probably wouldn't have gotten into Debian. Besides, ia32-libs is not meant to be a long-lived package, it'll go away eventually.
