gmerlin-avdecoder redux

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 10:32:44AM -0400, Felipe Sateler wrote:
>On 15/08/10 07:13, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 11:33:51AM +0200, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:
>>> On 08/15/2010 09:00 AM, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
>>>> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 21:30:32 (CEST), IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Well, the point of symbols file is actually to review the list of 
>>>> symbols manually, so automatically updating it really defeats its 
>>>> purpose.
>>>>
>>>> If (and only if) you are really sure that no other package actually 
>>>> uses the removed symbols, then it's OK to remove them.
>>>
>>> well, libgmerlin-avdec1 has never been in Debian, so no other 
>>> package can possibly depend on symbols in this package. so i guess, 
>>> we are safe on this side.
>>>
>>> otoh, libgmerlin-avdec1 has been in marillat's debian-multimedia. 
>>> packages that used this package and depend on the symbols, will 
>>> break.
>>>
>>> how is this normally dealt with?
>>
>> In my opinion Debian is upstream to Marillats archive, Ubuntu, 
>> Skolelinux and a lot of others, and if any of those start being 
>> "creative" and do things not in Debian, then it is their own headache 
>> to untangle themselves again if it clashes with what Debian decides 
>> to do later on.
>>
>> In other words, it makes sense to me to have it in mind now that we 
>> happen to know about this issue, but if we cannot solve a clash with 
>> a downstream distro easily and without carrying odd baggage in the 
>> package afterwards, then we should let it clash and leave it to 
>> downstream to solve it at their end.  Perhaps even be nice and inform 
>> them that we are aware of this clash (but without apologizing - it 
>> really is their own fault IMO).
>>
>> ...but that's me.  I can very well imagine others here having 
>> different opinion, if not about Marillat then about Ubuntu.  We had a 
>> recent discussion about derivative-specific package dependencies with 
>> the result that I will keep baggage in the source (but not in binary 
>> packages) regarding "firefox" (shipped in Ubuntu but not Debian) 
>> using dpkg-vendor.
>
>Note that there is a not so slight difference between Marillat's 
>archive and Ubuntu. Namely, that in this team we have people that work 
>on both debian and ubuntu (which is why it makes sense to do stuff for 
>ubuntu too). Marillat does not work with us, and a while ago 
>effectively worked against us.

True, we represent multiple distributions here.  This affect what kinds 
of issues we become aware of and is dear to us, and it eases 
tremendously some coordination for some cases where these distributions 
differ.

I welcome this cross-distro collaboration and would love to see even 
more distros joining forces with us!

The nature and scope of our teamwork should however not affect the 
packaging style/quality of our efforts, IMO.

I, too, am involved in devoping derivatives of Debian (Skolelinux in 
particular), yet insist - even when it leads to a larger burden on 
myself as I sometimes then need to some tasks twice - to follow the 
principle of not burdening or entangling upstream with downstream 
diversions.

  - Jonas

-- 
  * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
  * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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