[pkg-fso-maint] Sephora 0.2-1 available

[Luca Capello]

Hi Michele!

This mail is mostly Debian-related and I am sorry if it could be seen as
off-topic, but I think it could be useful for other as well.  In case
someone would like to continue the discussion, please at least do so on
the pkg-fso-maint mailing list.

On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:28:48 +0100, Michele Renda wrote:
> On 01/02/2009 17:51, Luca Capello wrote:
>> For your first two releases, a better versioning would have been:
>>
>>    0.2-0 ->  0.2.0
>>    0.2-1 ->  0.2.1
>
> Yes, I was knowing this, and I will correct. I would like to ask: in
> this case the right name would be
>
> sephora_0.2.0-1_all.deb
> sephora_0.2.1-1_all.deb
>
> Or,  because I am the maintener and the packager of this project, Can
> I simply call so ?
>
> sephora_0.2.0_all.deb
> sephora_0.2.1_all.deb
>
> (CDBS usually permit to call so if I create with the --native option)

It does not matter if you are the upstream author *and* the Debian
maintainer: the first case is for non-native packages, while the second
is for native ones (further details below).

>> And finally, something it should probably have been said before: Debian
>> packages are not the preferred way to distribute a software, but you
>> should go for the "canonical" patch, i.e. a tarball compressed with
>> either gzip or bzip.
>
> And here go out the long story: I really know that .deb is not the
> best way to distribute a software.
> To say the true I don't respect the GPL term, because with .deb I
> don't release the code (ok, everyone can branch a bzr repo).

IIRC the GPL does not oblige you to distribute the sources *together*
with the binaries, but instead it obliges you to provide the sources if
someone asks for it.

> To be correct I would telease these files:
>
> sephora_0.2.1-1.dsc
> sephora_0.2.1-1.tar.gz
> sephora_0.2.1-1.orig.tar.gz
>
> I am right?

No, sorry.  From a Debian POV, the .tar.gz and .orig.tar.gz above must
be the same.  This is valid not only for your package, but in general,
except when upstream sources contain not DFSG-free [1] material.

Basically, you should distribute sephora_0.2.1-1.orig.tar.gz.

> The problem is: a) this software is project to run only for Debian on
> FR. There is no reason because a person of another distro (2008.*,
> SHR) should use
> sephora. there are better utility to do the same thing that sephora
> do. I created sephora only because in Debian @ FR there are no such
> tool!

I can assure you that you should not make such an assumption, because
soon or later someone will use your software on other distributions.

The idea behind Debian native software (and thus packages) is slightly
different: it is usually software which deals with the internal of
Debian, thus it is clear that it relies on a Debian GNU/Linux
(e.g. dpkg/apt or cdbs).

However, if the software can works on any GNU/Linux, it should not be a
native package.  There are various reasons why native packages should be
avoided as much as possible, the first being that every modification in
the debian/ folder means that the version number should be bumped as
well.

That is why I strongly advise you to at least distribute the .tar.gz and
then pkg-fso repository can host the Debian binaries.  This means that
the binary must be compliant to the Debian Policy as much as possible,
but this is something we can help you to achieve :-)

HTH!

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

Footnotes: 
[1] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianFreeSoftwareGuidelines
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