On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:30:16 +0100 Emilio Pozuelo Monfort <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Emmet Hikory wrote: >> Reviewers and Packagers, >> >> At the recent MOTU Meeting, a set of guidelines for new package >> review was reviewed. This list is meant to supplement reviewers base >> opinions when reviewing packages, and provide for a relatively stable >> set of criteria when packagers are deciding if their packages should >> be uploaded to REVU. Please keep these guidelines in mind when either >> packaging new software or reviewing candidates for upload. The >> guidelines are broken into three separated goal-oriented sections, as >> follows: >> >> Packaging review >> 1. Package must meet Ubuntu versioning & Maintainer requirements >> 2. Package must match current Ubuntu (and Debian) packaging policies >> 3. Package should be linda & lintian clean >> 4. Contents of debian/ should be sane > >While I find there guidelines really appropriate, I would like to propose >another point: > > 4b. Contents of diff.gz should be in debian/. i.e. no inline patching. > >I say this because I looked yesterday at wxwidgets2.6 merge. And it was really >difficult for me, since a) patches were applied inline in the source and b) it >was a native package, so I didn't have a diff.gz to look for our patches. So I >would propose that inline patching is only allowed for SRUs and Security >updates. Of course if the package isn't native it will have the changes in the >diff.gz, but anyway that's not ideal. > >What do you guys think about it?
I'd suggest that we not be to pedantic about it. There are valid reasons not to use patch systems. Additionally, adding a patch system to a traditional dh rules based package can be a dauntingly non-trivial exercise for a new contributor. As an example of a case where I think a patch system would have been inapprpriate, I uploaded a one line change to courier shortly before gutsy released. I did it inline and not as a patch. I did it this way for the following reasons: 1. It was close to release and I felt that monkeying with debian/rules to add a patch represented a risk that there wouldn't be a lot of time to retire. 2. The change was already in the next upstream release and in Debian, so I knew it wouldn't have to be maintained. 3. It was only a single line change. Debian has a hard and fast rule about patch systems (although I still sometimes see inline changes from Debian). Ubuntu has traditionally been more flexible. I would like to see proper patching encouraged, but not required. This policy flexibility has, I think, generally served Ubuntu well. Scott K -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
