packaging policy

[Fabian Greffrath]

Am 26.04.2010 16:16, schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
> What I meant to say was that I seem to recall other _in_this_team_ happy
> to use CDBS as well. As Reinhard pointed out too.

Alright.

> What I questioned was a wording by Benjamin Drung that could only (to
> me) be interpreted as "in this team we are phasing out CDBS - new
> packages must use dh7 while older ones need not be converted right now".
> I still question that.
>
> I do not find that the wording is an attack on me or my personal style
> of packaging, but rather that it is narrowing the options of packaging.

I agree with you. We should neither restrict the use of packaging 
tools too much nor should we declare one of them as deprecated and 
plan to replace perfectly working solutions with other ones just 
because they do not fit into the scheme.

> Yes, I agree that new contributors are helped by a set of best packaging
> practices. But I disagree that mandating specific tools are all helpful.

Agreed.

> Examples:
>
> * we do code review, so please commit in sensible chunks
> * most of us use short-form dh7, some use CDBS
> * we use git-buildpackage with separate DEP3-hinted patches
>
> With the above, I bet new contributors would choose short-form dh7
> unless already decided on CDBS, simply because we clearly describe how
> likely it is to get help using either style. Similarly a newcomer would
> probably think twice before insisting on using e.g. Darcs since that
> would be alien to the team (no matter if some in the team use Darcs in
> some other contexts).

I find this idea really, really good. We should document what most of 
us do already use and not dictate others what they should use. I, 
personally, have no problem with a new contributor adding a package 
using darcs, but I will happily ignore any request for comments on 
this package. Exactly this should be documented.

Thanks Jonas.

-- 
Dipl.-Phys. Fabian Greffrath

Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Lehrstuhl für Energieanlagen und Energieprozesstechnik (LEAT)
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