[buildd-tools-devel] wanna-build and non-free packages

[Andreas Barth]

Hi,

after my recent try re wanna-build, I was thinking about things again:


As of now we cannot build-depend on non-free packages (because we
don't know if they could be used for building). (See also
http://lists.debian.org/20100402175855.GE19557@mails.so.argh.org )

This indicates to me that we should just add the packages from
non-free that wish to be built to the quinn-diff file, and be done
with it.

However, as of now, the packages file in the call to wanna-build also
is used for setting packages to state "installed" (from
building, uploaded, ...), but also to allow edos to consider which
packages have installable build-dependencies. This doesn't work
anymore with non-free where packages are installed, but cannot be used
as build-dependency now. Even worse, packages which are not in
quinn-diff anymore and not in installed via Packages are just removed
from the database.


So, this gives a couple of ideas:


1. Just add the packages to the relevant Packages/Sources file and
ignore if edos marks packages wrongly as buildable. The most easiest
way, but has some issues.


2. Change the interface so that instead --merge-all we use something
like:
--merge-new --packages main --packages contrib
--packages-installed-only non-free --sources main --sources contrib
--sources-installed-only non-free --q-d main --q-d contrib --q-d non-free

(or with --packages-bdonly base-suite)

*-installed-only only sets the state to installed. *bdonly is only
relevant for edos, but not for anything else. This could also remove
the number of package merges we do.



3. Also, while writing 2., I wondered why (except for historical
reasons) we're using quinn-diff, as everything is now within perl
available as well.



4. We could also change merge_quinn so that if packages disappear from
q-d which were in state Built or Uploaded (or perhaps even Building)
previously they go to installed, and are not removed. Of course,
that's an ugly hack.




Comments? Further ideas?



Andi