[Asdf-devel] Wanted: Debian packager

[Faré]

> I'm inclined to think that figuring out how to load ASDF from the
> cl-asdf debian package to override an ASDF that has been packaged with
> your implementation is no easier than doing so from cl.net.  Indeed, it
> may actually be more complicated, since you have to figure out how to
> load from where the debian package puts asdf, instead of where you have
> put it in your own user directory.
>
> So I suggest we just drop the cl-asdf package: the cost of maintaining
> it cannot be justified by the benefit it provides to the community.
>
> That said, if the Debian community disagrees with me, I don't mind
> maintaining the debian packaging in the ASDF git repository.  I just
> don't have the time and energy to take it that final step of maintaining
> an appropriate Debian build environment, building the package, and
> shipping it.
>
The cl-asdf package is useful for
1- use by CL implementation packages themselves, at compile-time, when
they don't otherwise come with a recent enough version of ASDF (if at
all). i.e. if someone wanted to update the package for GCL, or create
one for SCL, etc.
2- for use by libraries and applications that require a version that
is more recent than otherwise provided by CL implementation packages.

So I'd say that going forward, this could be done easily by whoever
needs it for his own debian CL packages.

That said, I can do the asdf debian package one last time for 3.1.2.
I've experimented a bit and come up with a better recipe. Apparently
the trick to avoid dealing with complications is to work in a branch
where the only changes since the upstream release tag are in the
debian/ directory. If you let me do it, I'll do it in the release
branch. I updated the bin/asdf-builder script to do the release
(moving code from the Makefile and making it better — scripting is SO
much better in Lisp). Of course, the script as exists in the release
branch is insufficient, and since it does a git clean -xfd we need to
extract it from master under another name everytime.

So: I committed some debian-only changes in my release branch (not
pushed — but I can do it if you approve, and even upload), and ran:
  git show master:bin/asdf-builder > bin/x && chmod a+x bin/x &&
./bin/x debian-package
and it looks like it worked. I can push all that if you want, or show
you how to do it. It's a matter of
  git checkout release ; git show master:debian/changelog >
debian/changelog ; edit debian/changelog

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