followup to comment on http://mentors.debian.net/package/ccl

[Faheem Mitha]

On Tuesday, September 4 2012, Peter Van Eynde wrote:

> Hi Faheem,

> sorry to be a bit critical, it is an impressive package as-is
> already. you did a build_interface_databases.sh and .m4 seem to come
> from somewhere. What is the license on those files? The copyright file
> says:

> Files: debian/*
> Copyright: 2012 Faheem Mitha
> License: LLGPL

> is this correct?

> I would use the ccl-bootstrap setup, but simply make CCL version X
> build-depend on CCL version X.

> As to why:

> The auto-builders will try to download the source package as-is and
> try to build it again, this will fail due to the bootstrapping
> procedure. I understand the reasons for them, but the bootstrapping of
> CCL should be hidden from the debian's view of reality, we should have
> a CCL package that compiles itself. The fact that you have to
> bootstrap the new package should be work behind the curtains,
> explained in the README.source ;)

> This implies also that you should not use the m4 based setup or make
> certain that the files in the source package are the right ones for
> the auto-builders. From experience I suggest to avoid confusion by
> having separate files for the bootstrapping, not involved in the
> normal debian building process.

> Best regards, Peter

Hi Peter,

First, I didn't see this message, which you posted at
http://mentors.debian.net/package/ccl, till recently, otherwise I
would have replied sooner. mentors.debian.net did not email me the
comment, as I would have expected, and I just happened to check the
page.

I'm not sure whether the mentors.debian.net web page is a suitable place 
for discussions, but for now I'd adding my reply there. Please advise 
about the correct procedure. I'm also emailing you and CCing 
pkg-common-lisp-devel and Christoph Egger.

Yes, all the shell scripts in the debian directory, including the m4
versions, are under the LLGPL license. This is per my understanding
that the Debian packaging should be under the same license as the
upstream source.

Thanks for the feedback, but if you want me to make changes, you'll
have to be more explicit about what they should be. I don't know how
the Debian autobuilders work.

As I attempted to outline in the README.source, my plan with the m4
script is to have two versions of the rules, control and
build_interface_databases.sh files, which can be used to build the
packages in two ways - see the section "The two ways to build this
package".

The way I imagined this being used when building the package in a
Debian context, for example by a sponsor was as follows.

1) Build the ccl-bootstrap binary package from the ccl-bootstrap
sources. Then use that to build the ccl binary package from the ccl
sources. Note that the default version of the rules, control and
build_interface_databases.sh files in the debian directory is the
version for building from ccl-bootstrap.

2) Now we have a ccl binary package, and can use it to build the
source again, but this time with the version that build depends on the
new ccl binary package. As mentioned in the README that version can be
generated with

BOOTSTRAP=false sh m4.sh

Now, as regards what you want. You write

"I would use the ccl-bootstrap setup, but simply make CCL version X
build-depend on CCL version X."

I'm unclear what this means, and the rest of your explanation is also 
unclear to me. Before having a ccl to build-depend on, one needs to have a 
ccl package. And how would one use the ccl-bootstrap setup while 
huild-depending on ccl? Perhaps you could explicitly lay out the steps you 
imagine going through, similar to how I did above?

                                                            Regards, Faheem