[ Please don't Cc me on replies to a public mailing list ] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (James A. Treacy) writes:
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(James A. Treacy) writes: > > > > > Should apt have to download the dsc file for a package before it > > > knows what the source files are? > > > > Why on earth not? If it's going to download the source, the .dsc file > > is part of the source and has to be downloaded anyway. > > It is clearly much more efficient if the .dsc files don't have to be > retrieved. Eh? Have you ever used dpkg-source? The .dsc files _have_ to be retrieved because they're an essential part of the source package. (In any event .dsc files are usually no more than several hundred bytes; hardly worth making a polava over) > > Then they have 2 options: [...] > These are both hacks (in the bad sense of the word. Kluge is a better (Kludge even) > word, but many people won't know it). No; (1) is a kludge, (2) is a perfectly valid solution and poses no real problems that I can see, as opposed to allowing multiple source versions of the same package which poses lots of problems for little or no gain. [And I'm speaking as a porter; multiple source versions of the same source and with the same name would give me the mother of all headaches.] -- James