Miquel van Smoorenburg writes ("Re: New package standards - LAST CALL"): ... > I also think that when you make the new source package official, we > should warn all maintainers of the base packages and ask them to convert > their packages to the new standard. If they don't react in say 2 weeks, > someone else can do it (I'll take some) like David did during the > transition from a.out to ELF.
Yes. If a few people do a lot of packages it's probably quicker and less error-prone, anyway, then having the maintainers do it themselves. On the other hand having the maintainers do it themselves will get them to learn the ropes ... ... > Well, one other idea. Since the original source and the patch are kept > in the archive, would it be possible to look for an additional architecture > dependant patch? [...] No. Any architecture dependencies should be avoided; if they can't they should be dealt with at build-time in the package itself, rather than by making several versions of the package. > [..] It would be a tremendous advantage when porting to > a new architecture - the porter need only supply the extra patch to the > debian archive and it will "just work". Also, the patch will be in a public > place so that the original maintainer can integrate the patch in the > next version of the package. The porter should make an architecture-independent patch (ie, one that will work on any architecture) and then either: (a) add `.1' to the Debian revision and release a new source package with their binaries - they should send the patch to the original maintainer for inclusion, too; or (a) send the patch to the main maintainer (or to [EMAIL PROTECTED]) and wait for it to be included. Ian.