Re: [Freeciv-Dev] freeciv/debian in dist?

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

OK, I am very reluctant to post this; could we please move this
discussion off the list?  I would be pleased to carry on this conversation
via private e-mail with the concerned parties.

First, let me say that if the FreeCiv people *want* the debian/ directory in
CVS or the tarball, don't let me stop you; the harms to the Debian side of
things are greater than to the FreeCiv side for this isolated incident. 
However, I do think that it's a bad idea.  I have consulted a few other
Debian developers, who share my opinion on the matter (from the Debian
perspective).

Also, let me say that I'm glad to see Lalo's enthusiasm in this matter! 
It's great to have somebody so excited about free software projects such as
FreeCiv and Debian.  However, I think that such tight integration is not
such a good idea for these particular projects.

Anyway, first let me try to summarize the situation, and then I'll respond
directly to Lalo's latest post.

Here are the disadvantages of this scheme...

>From FreeCiv's perspective:

There's not a big problem (probably) with having a debian/ directory there,
except what it leads to.  Is FreeCiv prepared to ship packaging information
for all the myraid of other packaging formats as well?  Hopefully the answer
is no; in which case, it is not fair to include debian/ but not others. 
Also, it Lalo ever stops maintaining the Debian package, is FreeCiv really
ready to give write access to the CVS tree to whomever else replaces him? 
Additionally, Debian has a mechanism for non-maintainer uploads when
necessary; these people may not even know of the issues involved and would
certainly not have write access to the FreeCiv CVS tree.

>From Debian's perspective:  (I don't expect everyone on this list to
understand all of these)

 * It violates the standards set out in the Debian packaging manual,
   version 2.4.1.0, section 3.3, which states that the approach without
   a diff.gz can only be used if there is no "original source code"
   (original here meaning non-Debian) and cites as an example
   "if the package is specially prepared for Debian".  This is not
   the case with FreeCiv.  FreeCiv is, and ought to remain, cross-platform.

 * NMUs are complicated.  If it is necessary to do an NMU, confusion may
   result if the changes cannot be placed into FreeCiv CVS.  I really
   don't think that it's the right idea to give hundreds of Debian
   developers write access to the FreeCiv CVS tree.

 * This forces FreeCiv to be compliant with all Debian policy itself.
   For instance, if it wants to put config files in /usr/etc instead
   of /etc, this discrepency with Debian policy is solved with a simple
   change in Debian's diff.gz.  While there may or may not currently
   be such a problem, it could occur in the future; the FreeCiv people
   may want defaults or locations different than Debian mandates.
   Your approach forces the FreeCiv people to use Debian's choices
   or else your package fails to abide by Debian policy.

 * If somebody else takes over the package from you, this scheme immediately
   breaks down unless they happen to be FreeCiv developers with write
   access to the tree.  If this is not the case, all parties are
   inconvenienced.

 * There are better solutions to your problem, as demonstrated
   by Debian's kernel-package package.


On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 03:31:11AM -0200, Lalo Martins wrote:

> Yes, I know. The "problem" is that we already have the directory
> in CVS, and I think it makes little sense to strip it from the

This may not necessarily be a good idea, as I explain above.

> distributions tar. Specially, if I could get debian/changelog in
> time, there would be no need for freeciv_*.*.diff.gz (minor
> point, of course).

However, packaging policy and common sense say that we *should* have this
file.

> I don't feel like pushing. I'm too happy that the FreeCiv folks
> decided to have debian/ in the CVS. I just don't see a reason to
> strip it off in the .tar once it's already there.

As I pointed out earlier, if debian/ is there, fairness dictates that
everything else be allowed in, too: RedHat, Slackware, POSIX, Solaris, SCO,
Windows (!), etc.  This adds bloat to the distribution, adds parts to it
that developers cannot fix because they don't have access to the relevant
systems, etc.

> And BTW. In this particular case, .deb is _not_ so != from
> joe-average-debian-user to fetch latest CVS stuff an build a
> .deb from it very easily.

Please see kernel-package and take a similar approach.  We didn't require
that Linus add debian/ to the kernel source, and can still make deb's from
it in an easy and automated fashion.  The same can be done for FreeCiv.

> What will happen in the end is: either debian/ gets to the .tar,
> or I will stop using the .tar - it's a lot easier for me to just
> build the packages from CVS.

This distinction should not be present; the CVS should not have debian/.

-- 
John Goerzen   Linux, Unix consulting & programming   jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx |
Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade)       www.debian.org |
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