Lucas Nussbaum writes ("Re: Bug#1007717: Draft resolution for "Native source
package format with non-native version""):
> Out of curiosity, if 3.0 (native) supported multiple tarballs, wouldn't
> it be a good solution?
Oh, I hadn't thought of that.
> The main limitation I see is that it would not allow to represent
> efficiently small changes to large text files (which a git-based diff
> would allow).
That may not be important. My feeling is that it wouldn't be.
However, I think there are some other difficulties with this idea.
*Deletion* of files *is* important. Something would have to be done
to support that. (Tarball repacking is an abominable workflow which
we should only do when we must.)
It is important that packing and unpacking these things works roughly
the same way that things work right now for the diffish formats. Ie,
for a package with two tarballs, the first tarball would have to omit
the Debian revision from its filename (so that it needn't be
re-uploaded), and the second tarball would have to *contain* it.
dpkg-source -b would have to calculate the appropriate second tarball
as a diff from the first. (GNU tar has an incremental option that
could perhaps be used.)
I think, having followed this line of throught, the result looks quite
like a "3.0 (diff)" only the diff is in the form of an incremental
tarball rather than a textual patch file.
This could definitely work.
But I think that might not meet ftpmaster's review needs. AIUI
ftpmaster like to review the diff qua diff, and a tarball isn't so
straightforward. I had a similar idea to use an rsync batchfile as
the delta, which foundered on the same issue.
And I'm not sure that it will find better favour with dpkg upstream
than my "3.0 (git-diff)".
> I'm asking because if 3.0 (native) gets more generic by allowing
> non-native revisions, it might be an easier sell to introduce
> multi-tarballs support, than to introduce a completely different source
> format.
Mmmm. I think there are many possibilities here which would suffice.
Right now, though, it's a bit hard to make progress without feedback
on what general direction would be most well received.
Ian.
--
Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own.
Pronouns: they/he. If I emailed you from @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk,
that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
