[Pkg-crosswire-devel] [Merge] lp:~pkgcrosswire/libsword/get-orig-source into lp:libsword

[Jonathan Marsden]

>> Per Roberto's suggestion, this adds a get-orig-source rule so
>> we can automatically repack the SWORD source tarball, removing
>> the zlib and regex files.

> I'm against this. ...

OK.  There are likely to be other files we will need to remove too, if we can't get solid copyright and licence info for them.  For these particular files (zlib and regex) you are right that there is no legal necessity for omitting them in this way.

> And the preferred solution IMHO is to work with upstream on this issue.

Theoretically, yes, of course.  That is why I raised the issue on the mailing list.

In practice, we already know that upstream (CrossWire) wants these files left in the tarball for Windows use; that's not entirely unreasonable, IMO (as long as they are appropriately acknowledged, and kept somewhat up to date).  If you feel there is a strong case you can make for removing them from the upstream tarball, feel free to work with the CrossWire SWORD developers to persuade them to remove these files from their release tarballs; if you succeed, that would be a good solution from our perspective.  I suspect you'd upset SWORD Windows devels in the process, though (especially if you are consistent and carry this approach through to things like the untgz and Sapphire II files as well).

Personally, I think this is a Debian/Ubuntu packaging issue.  I don't feel I can make a strong case for the upstream removal of the zlib and regex files, but if you can, cool -- make it :)

Meanwhile, I'm just coding and testing exactly what our one and only active upload sponsor has suggested we do in this situation -- work that seems appropriate, so that we can continue to get our uploads sponsored :)  If you want to propose an alternate patch that removes these files, that's fine too, go ahead and create and test a branch with such a patch (or rm commands in debian/rules that act before ./configure is run, or whatever approach you prefer) in it, and then we can ask Roberto which approach he prefers, merge that to main, and upload his chosen variant.

Jonathan
-- 
https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~pkgcrosswire/libsword/get-orig-source/+merge/5703
Your team Crosswire Packaging Team is subscribed to branch lp:libsword.