On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 11:31:27PM -0700, Jordan Mantha wrote: > On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 9:49 PM, Nicolas Valcarcel > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Currently there is no policy about how to make changes in the > > packages, > > there are some good practices and a lot of developers try to use patch > > systems whenever they can and don't touch the source code outside > > debian/ directly, but that's still at the developer's discretion. > > For that reason i wanted to start a discussion on the topic, to start > > working with debian on preparing the packages with a patch system, so we > > (and other derivatives) can make patches without the need of changing > > the packaging. Also i will suggest to the revu reviewers to ask the > > packagers to add a patch system on their packages. > > What did you think about it? Any comments? > > 1. https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/supertux/+bug/249195 > I think our job as downstreams is to provide patches to Debian, not > tell them how to maintain their packages. IMO anyway, it's our > obligation to either 1) give ordinary diff patches 2) use whatever > patch system or lack thereof that upstream uses. There are so many > common ways to patch and maintain a package (debhelper, cdbs, quilt, > dpatch, svn, git, bzr ...) that I can't foresee a comprehensive, > archive-wide policy. > Additionally, IMO again, a primary goal of at least MOTU should be > minimizing the divergence from Debian. The more changes we make, and > the more useless they are (bumping standards version??) the more time > we spend maintaining the divergence and the less time we have for more > important tasks. Adding a patch system really *should not* be done in > Ubuntu. If we're maintaining that much divergence we need to talk to > Debian about how we can better minimize and maintain it. If you have more than one change to the upstream source of a Debian package, then you need some system to manage the changes to indicate which parts of the patch belong to which functional change -- i.e., a "patch management system". This can be a set of VCS feature branches, if you prefer (in which case it's important to use the Vcs-* headers in debian/control in the Ubuntu upload), or it can be an in-package patch system; but it is important to have /some/ mechanism for labelling your changes so that you aren't left with a single massive diff. If the Debian maintainer already has a patch system in place, it's far better to continue using that one (no matter how bad it is, sometimes); otherwise, adding a patch system *should* be done when needed. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
