Packaging 'stretchplayer'

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:34:53AM -0600, Gabriel M. Beddingfield wrote:
>On Sun, 28 Nov 2010, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>
>>But no, CDBS is not out of fashion, if that is what you implied above.
>
>Sorry, wasn't trying to spread FUD.  :-) Roughly 10 out of the last 10 
>packages from 'sid' that I've looked at are DH 7 with a Quilt format... 
>so I thought perhaps that was the rule these days.

Those are a bunch of different things:

  a) debhelper compatibility level 7
  b) debhelper use of short-form dh
  c) quilt patch format
  d) dpkg source format 3.0 (quilt)
  e) Rules of Debian
  f) Rules of the Multimedia team

Regarding a): The author of debhelper generally encourage tightening to 
latest compatilibity level.  That however makes backporting more 
difficult, often with little or no real benefit.

Regarding b): There is a growing popularity in the use of short-form dh.  
Apparently[1], however, this trend is not on the cost of CDBS, as that 
format has a quite steady amount of packages, so instead it seems the 
short-form dh followers are either new package maintainers and those 
previously spelling out long-form dh_* commands explicitly.

I would put it as there is a growing trend of abstracting the classic 
debhelper commands using _either_ short-form dh _or_ CDBS.  But hey, as 
the most active maintainer of CDBS itself I am obviously biased (and 
your "random" look at 10 packages is not?).

Regarding c): Among multiple patch systems, dpatch and quilt are the 
popular ones.  Although dpatch is emphasized by some fans to be more 
powerful and flexible, I have only ever(!) come simple dpatch use of 
plain patch files (like quilt) with that pesky dpatch header on top 
making it impossible to edit with other tools than dpatch itself.

Regarding d): The new source format has clear benefits over the old 1.0 
version.  I believe the only sane reason to avoid it is quirks in 
interacting with various specialized environments (e.g. VCS wrappers), 
most of which are being worked on.

Regarding d): The rules of Debian are defined based on actual usage 
patterns, not the other way around.  Ther are no rules (yet) mandating 
any of above.

Regarding e): The Multimedia team currently encourages (but I believe 
does not mandate) use of dpkg source format 3.0 (quilt), and use either 
short-form dh or CDBS (but not both in same package: they are 
incompatible).


  - Jonas

-- 
  * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
  * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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