On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 10:45:46AM +0000, Thomas Viehmann wrote: > Hi. > > Marcin Juszkiewicz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > >I packaged ROX-Filer (http://rox.sf.net/). Some time ago version 2.0.0 was > >released as stable so I changed few things in packaging. Now I have 3 > >packages: > ... > > >What I should do now? > >1. I can just integrate "rox-snapshot" into "rox" so this will be "always" > >up-to-date with bugfixes. > >2. Do some "cvs update" to "rox" to have this one bug fixed. > >3. Create patch from CVS and apply it to ROX-Filer 2.0.0 sources. > > > >Which method is more Debian way? > > If the size of the patch is reasonable, a backport of the fix (i.e. something > like 3 > but with manual review) is the best way to go. If you want to, use > README.Debian to > point people to the rox-snapshot package if they need the latest and greatest. > > Using the package "rox" for any cvs snapshot has the problem that the any > version of > rox you upload *might* be the one user's of the next stable release are stuck > with. > > Whether or not it is necessary or adviasable to have three versions of the > same > thing in Debian seems to be another question. >
Generally it's not reasonable, but for some specific cases where release cycle is really low and/or every new version is not back-compatible and could render a lot of programs unusable (e.g. this is the ratio for releasing multiple autotools, python, etc). All packages should be released as 'stable' with neeeded well-known back-ported and checked patches from cvs or other sources of information. CVS snapshots are definitively not for general use, so please don't package them, without a very good reason. -- Francesco P. Lovergine