On Thu, Nov 08, 2007 at 03:59:44PM +0100, Bas Wijnen wrote: > Making changes to make the build work is always good, of course. > However, when changes are made for the Debian package, this should be > done in a way which doesn't hide them. When a user sees a package where > the tarball is repackaged "because some files had to be removed", she's > not going to expect any changes other than the removal of some files. > For other changes, we have a nicely working patch system.
That is all documented in README.Debain-source. All the repackaged packages of mine have such a file which describe, in detail, what I do. In that sense, it is not hidden. > > Also, my patches looked too ugly. > > And that's not an argument not to use it. :-) If you need to do ugly > things, then it should look ugly. Putting those changes somewhere where > they're hard to see may cause other problems which are hard to track > down (not for you, but for other people who are expecting the have the > original source). Especially if those changes are needed to make the > build work, it is important that they are visible like other changes, > and that's in the .diff.gz (directly or through a patch system, whatever > you prefer). I agree on this, and you are very correct. But my mentor recommended the change, as we were repackaging it anyway. Besides, noting whatever I've done in README.Debian-source does alleviate suffering a little. But it's always tough when repackaging... *sigh* Kumar -- Kumar Appaiah, 458, Jamuna Hostel, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai - 600 036 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
