On Fri, 18 Mar 2011, Harald Dunkel wrote: > What is Debian's policy, if upstream provides its own debian > directory or package build procedure? Is upstream always right?
There's no official policy, but generally speaking, you should use a non-native package. The one exception to this is a case where every Debian release will also entail a new upstream release. You can also suggest to upstream that they include the debian directory in a examples directory or similar, so that it doesn't get in the way of packaging (or just not distribute it in the main package at all.) > What if upstream's package sets conflict with Debian's packages, and > I want to install upstream's packages? Is it the DM's responsibility > to avoid this conflict or to preserve compatibility? Famous example > for this would be the Linux kernel sources. It's the maintainer's responsibility to make sure the package in Debian is the highest quality possible. Generally this means working with upstream so that the patches don't conflict, but sometimes upstream has a different set of goals than a distribution packager, and compromises and divergences need to exist. There's no hard and fast rule here either, but the best thing is to communicate and work with your upstream. Don Armstrong -- We cast this message into the cosmos. [...] We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe. -- Jimmy Carter on the Voyager Golden Record http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
