On 02/13/2014 10:12 PM, Raphael Hertzog wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > On Thu, 13 Feb 2014, Thomas Goirand wrote: >> So I wonder, could dpkg-maintscript-helper be in another source package >> than dpkg, so that it could be easily backported? > > Even if it was part of another package, it would have strong versioned > dependencies against dpkg because this script is allowed to rely on > various internal details of how dpkg is working that cannot be safely > assumed when you're not coupled with dpkg. > > Even if it currently works by using only public interfaces of dpkg, it > might need to be changed the day where dpkg gets smarter native conffile > handling and we don't want to risk having a broken combination of > dpkg/dpkg-maintscript-helper. > > Thinking a bit more about this, what we currently need is to restrict > dpkg-maintscript-helper to a maximal dpkg version that is known to be > compatible. So it might be doable but it will be painful to handle as > it will require an update for each new version of dpkg. And the day where > dpkg changes in a way that impact dpkg-maintscript-helper we're back to > a situation with tight dependencies.
Hi Raphael, Thanks a lot for all of the details. I understand better now the design choice and why it's within dpkg. Looking at the script, it seems *very* complicated and hard to get it directly right. I believe I could write a much simpler version for my own needs (with less features, probably), reading what's been done in dpkg-maintscript-helper. So, what's your advice for writing a "backportable" dir_to_symlink function? > I know that backporting dpkg is frowned upon > by the backports maintainer but I don't really understand this. If the > backport is prepared with care and acked by the dpkg maintainers, it > should not be a big source of worries. What is the argumentation against a backport of dpkg? Would it be easy for me to backport dpkg; is it a strait rebuild, or is there anything which has to be changed? Cheers, Thomas Goirand (zigo) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
