ccl-ffigen_1.2-1_amd64.changes REJECTED

[Faheem Mitha]

Hi,

This is a second reminder. It is now 1st March 2014, i.e. approximately 5 
1/2 months since I followed up to the ftpmaster email on 11th September 
2013. I spent a great deal of time working on this packaging 
(approximately 1 month), and I would appreciate it if the ftpmasters would 
show me the minimal courtesy of replying to me. I thought Debian was 
supposed to appreciate its contributors. See 
https://www.debian.org/intro/diversity

Right now, I am not feeling particularly appreciated or encouraged.

                                            Thanking you,
                                            Sincerely, Faheem Mitha

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013, Faheem Mitha wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I don't mean to be impatient, but would it be possible for the FTP Master 
> team to make a call on this, please? It does not seem like *so* difficult a 
> technical issue.
>
>                                                           Thanks, Faheem
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2013, Faheem Mitha wrote:
>
>> 
>> On Tue, 9 Apr 2013, Luca Falavigna wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> sorry, but we do not think introducing a convenience copy of gcc
>>> is a good thing. Also, the 4.0 sources contain files licensed under
>>> GFDL with invariant sections, which are not suitable for main.
>>> 
>>> Please try to build your code using existing gcc versions in the archive
>>> implementing Built-Using field.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Luca
>>> 
>>> ===
>>> 
>>> Please feel free to respond to this email if you don't understand why
>>> your files were rejected, or if you upload new files which address our
>>> concerns.
>> 
>> Extremely belated reply to this message, I've been busy. But if I waited 
>> for a good time, this might never be answered.
>> 
>> I think the package was rejected based on a misunderstanding.
>> 
>> As described at 
>> https://bitbucket.org/faheem/ccl-ffigen-debian/src/tip/README.Debian?at=default 
>> this package exists to build CCL's interface databases.
>> 
>> As described in http://trac.clozure.com/ccl/wiki/CustomFramework (FFI
>> is Foreign Function Interface)
>> 
>> """To support its FFI, CCL maintains a binary database of information
>> about classes, methods, functions, types, and variables available from
>> foreign libraries in several ".cdb" files. You will need to generate
>> this information for your particular library. In order to do this, you
>> will need to obtain and build ffigen4. """
>> 
>> This has little or nothing to do with GCC per se. It is *not* a fork.
>> Basically, it uses the GCC frontend for a purpose that is presumably
>> sufficiently similar to conventional compilation to enable a compiler
>> frontend to be used., namely building .cdb files which reflect the C
>> API of some .h files. I'm fuzzy about the details myself.
>> 
>> Anyway, getting it to build the code using existing versions of GCC in the 
>> archive would be impracticably difficult for a non-expert. (For the record, 
>> getting CCL to build correctly and in particular build the interface 
>> databases in question was quite hair-raisingly difficult enough.) If you 
>> doubt me, look at the 'source' subdirectory in the ffigen tarball, which 
>> has the patches against gcc 4.0, and tell me if you understand what they 
>> do.
>> 
>> I doubt even the main CCL developers would attempt it. They farmed out
>> the job to someone else years ago, who used the then-current GCC
>> compiler to get this to work. I could dig up more details, and talk to
>> the CCL developers themselves (who are usually grumpy and not
>> particularly sympathetic towards Debian, however) if you really need
>> further clarification. I'm including the ffigen README below, which
>> adds some details and history.
>> 
>> As for the documentation thing, I guess I could just strip out the
>> doc/FDL files from the tarball?
>>
>>                                                          Regards, Faheem.
>> 
>> ###########################################################################
>> 
>> # $Log$
>> # Revision 1.2  2005/08/10 05:05:46  gb
>> # Updated.
>> #
>> # Revision 1.1  2005/04/08 07:03:16  gb
>> # New file.
>> #
>> 
>> 'ffigen' is a modified version of the GCC backend, based on similar
>> modifications to the 'LCC' compiler described at:
>> 
>> <http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/lth/ffigen/index.html>
>> 
>> It's a work derived from GCC, and therefore licensed under the GPL.
>> 
>> Versions of ffigen - based on GCC 2.95 sources - were distributed
>> as adjunct components of OpenMCL in 2001 and 2002.  It's become
>> increasingly difficult to use those versions, since they're sensitive
>> to the exact format of the 2.95 C preprocessor output (and since GCC
>> 2.95 is fading into obsolescence.)  The source distributions consisted
>> of a set of patches (relative to a canonical 2.95 source tree) and
>> a README file that explained the build process.
>> 
>> In the summer of 2004, Helmut Eller made available a set of patches
>> relative to GCC 3.4.1.  (Unlike previous versions, GCC 3.x's
>> preprocessor and frontend are a single program, so an ffigen program
>> derived from GCC 3 is likely to be a little more self-contained than
>> earlier versions.)
>> 
>> This version is based on GCC 4.0, builds on Helmut's work, and adds
>> some initial support for translating Objective-C class and method
>> information.  In addition, it provides a heavily conditionalized
>> Makefile which builds a binary package (.tar.gz file) on both LinuxPPC
>> and DarwinPPC.
>> 
>> In order to build the program, it's necessary to obtain canonical
>> versions of GCC (with ObjC support) for the target platform; the
>> Makefile tersely explains what's missing and suggests where to find
>> it.  You need to obtain the following files from gcc.gnu.org or a
>> mirror site and install them in this directory:
>> 
>> gcc-core-4.0.0.tar.bz2
>> gcc-objc-4.0.0.tar.bz2
>> 
>> Once those archives are installed, doing:
>> 
>> shell> make
>> 
>> will build the modified frontend, create an archive containing that
>> frontend and related support files, and create a text file explaining
>> how to install things.
>> 
>> These patches are maintained in CVS on clozure.com.  For anonymous
>> access:
>> 
>> shell> cvs -d :pserver:cvs at clozure.com:/usr/local/publiccvs login
>> 
>> [The anonymous CVS password is 'cvs']
>> 
>> shell> cvs -d :pserver:cvs at clozure.com:/usr/local/publiccvs get ffigen4