Subject: Re: New package standards - LAST CALL

From: [email-masked] (Bruce Perens)
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 96 22:33 PDT

Miquel:
> If they don't react [to the request to convert to the new source package]
> in say 2 weeks, someone else can do it (I'll take some) like David did
> during the transition from a.out to ELF.

Thanks for volunteering! Please make sure to merge the multi-architecture
patches while you do that.

> would it be possible to look for an additional architecture
> dependant patch? For example, if you have
> bash-1.14.6-1.dsc
> bash-1.14.6-1.EXTRA.alpha.diff.gz

I strongly prefer only one patch per package. I'd prefer the
architecture-specific stuff to be in the one main patch, with ifdefs, etc.
if necessary. One reason is that there is rarely a patch to user code
that is necessary for only _one_ architecture. Either it's word-size,
or endian-ness, or something else that is going to be necessary for
ultra-sparc as well as alpha, etc.

A second reason is that it's nice for the packager to be able to see all
of the Debian changes at once. Otherwise, it would be too easy to make
incompatible changes that are only caught when we go to build on the
architecture that has its own patches.

	Thanks

	Bruce

---

From: Miquel van Smoorenburg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 12:52:12 +0200 (MET DST)

> patches while you do that.

Why do you think I'm volunteering :) I have ported all the base packages
to Debian/Alpha and there are a lot of diffs to merge in anyway. It's
probably easier for me to repackage everything and upload it then to
get all the maintainers to accept my patches. Well faster anyway.
As an added bonus all these packages then have GNU libc support so when
libc6 comes out for the i386 it will be just a matter of recompiling.

Expect the first Debian/Alpha machine on the net later today or tomorrow !

Mike.
-- 
  Miquel van    | Cistron Internet Services   --    Alphen aan den Rijn.
  Smoorenburg,  | mailto:[email-masked]          http://www.cistron.nl/
[email-masked] | Tel: +31-172-419445 (Voice) 430979 (Fax) 442580 (Data)