[ I'm replying, even though I want this thread to die! ] Mark Eichin <eichin@cygnus.com> writes: > > A src-orig-*.deb file is a simple wrapper for the tarballs + any extra > > information you want to add to the description. It would be possible > > to wrap one around a tarball with a single command. There would be no > > possibilities for errors. > > Point of information: there are *lots* of possibilities for errors. > Syntax of the description file; running out of disk space (in this > dir? in /tmp? where else?) during the construction. Just because it's > a single command doesn't make it "safe" -- it's still a complex > operation. You are arguing for an atomic kernel operation. Is that really fair? You're not leaving my argument any flexibility to do anything at all. Essentially, you are telling me to shut up. If that is really your position, why reply? This is sooo aggravating. I imagined I would be forthcoming, people would be constructive, and some more ideas would flow forth. Sort of "the Cathedral and the Bazaar" approach. Instead, it's been more like "the Cathedral and the Bizarre"... (ooooh, I'm starting to think like RMS more and more every day) > Also, in another post you mention a few additional things you could do > with something like this. It appears that you still disagree that > package-building is *not* a system function, but a user function. If > anything, a tool to keep track of a pool of source packages in my > homedir might be interesting -- and one could certainly consider > lessons learned from dpkg about some of the details -- but because > it's "tuned" for the problem of integrating packages into the system, > I'd say it's less suited for what is really the opposite problem. It's a superset - so it might be overkill - not optimized for performance. That doesn't mean it doesn't have the functionality to do the job. The proper approach would be to realize that there is significant common functionality, and come up with a normalized solution. The way you are arguing, you leave absolutely no room for that. So I give up. dpkg works -- but if I use it for what I want to do, a number of Debian developers (particularily Ian, who wrote it), are going to attempt to turn me into a pariah. I don't want that. I'll use something else instead. > Remember that the unix filesystem *itself* is one of these generic > tools; it is the unix-ish way of organizing files; and forcing stuff > into system directories just because some tool does that seems like a > tail-wagging-the-dog design choice... I already demonstrated that dpkg works just fine in user space. It can be used to organize user space or system space. The principles are essentially the same. In fact, I'd argue that this is highly desirable. And it is totally in-line with the unix-ish way of doing things. (Unix is just a bunch of hacks that work anyways) Anyways, I'm not interested in discussing this stuff anymore. It's been interesting, but not very productive. Cheers, - Jim
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