[Pkg-javascript-devel] whether or not to sometimes remove questionably useful binaries from node modules

[Jérémy Lal]

Le mardi 01 juillet 2014 à 04:58 +0000, Felipe Sateler a écrit :
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2014 18:59:03 -0700, Andrew Kelley wrote:
> 
> > from #debian-multimedia
> > 
> > <fsateler> andrewrk: why did you remove the ncp binary?
> > <andrewrk> fsateler, it clutters up the global bin namespace, and why
> > would you ever use it instead of plain old cp ?
> > <andrewrk> it seems common for node module authors to include useless
> > binaries with their libraries <andrewrk> another one:
> > https://github.com/rvagg/node-errno <andrewrk> in the common use case,
> > all node modules are installed locally to the project. so people are not
> > worried about picking globally unique binary names. in the above project
> > if you were using it you could do something like:
> > <andrewrk> ./node_modules/.bin/errno foo <andrewrk> while developing.
> > but as node-errno debian package I think it makes sense to only include
> > the library functionality <andrewrk> I suppose Jérémy Lal would have an
> > opinion on this
> > 
> > Any other opinions out there?
> 
> Hi, sorry for dropping off but my irc died. What I mean is that you 
> deleted the binary. I agree that installing it might not be a good idea, 
> but you do not need to remove the file from the repository.
> 
> Not installing the binary does not require removing the binary from the 
> source.

Oh.

Andrew, modifications you make to the upstream files are supposed to be
done in one of two ways (and directly removing files from the gbp
repository is not a way):

- repackage upstream tarball to exclude files for DFSG reasons
The simplest way to do that is through [0] and uscan. The fact a
upstream tarball was repackaged is advertised in the version of the
debian package, like 3.0.1+dfsg-1

- modification of files to fix something
this must be done using patches (with a DEP-3 format) in debian/patches,
the tool of choice being quilt.

Tell me if you need references or explanations.

[0]
https://wiki.debian.org/UscanEnhancements