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Re: Debian 2.2 Release.



At 01:09 PM 07/06/2000 -0700, Joey Hess wrote:
Seth Cohn wrote:
> Agreed. The question was: what is cleanest? Changing every package out there
> and the spec of future packages, _or_ patching bugs/reportbugs ?
> Seems to me, the cleaner answer is patching... way less work. One person can
> fix it, as opposed to making everyone change.

We seem to have different definitions of "clean".

:clean: 1. /adj./  Used of hardware or software designs, implies
   `elegance in the small',

Elegant:
 of seemingly effortless beauty in form or proportion

Effortless and small: patch bugs/reportbugs.
Effortful: add an Origin field and make everyone change.

 that is, a design or implementation that
   may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is
   reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the
   outside.  The antonym is `grungy' or {crufty}.  2. /v./ To
   remove unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter:
   "I'm cleaning up my account."  "I cleaned up the garbage and now
   have 100 Meg free on that partition."

On the crufty charge, I plead guilty. :)  patching bugs/reportbugs
would be easier but would be a hack...

A solution that only works for packages installed with apt is hardly clean.

It would work with more than just apt installed debs... the problem would be identifying the right place to BTS to. For instance, so long as a package of the same name was in the apt db, it would find what was hopefully the right BTS from that. For directly downloaded debs, with no matching name, it'd 'go looking' for a file installed by that deb, with an email in it.

Yes, an Origin field is the way to go... of course... but there are other solutions with less work involved, that would work now.

For the next version of the deb spec, by all means add a Origin field.
But till then?

Seth




--
see shy jo



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