[Surfraw-devel] Bug#209155 and namespace issues

[Kevin Kreamer]

On Nov 2, 2003, at 16:28, Ian Beckwith wrote:
> Hi. As I said in a previous message (Oct 1st), I've had a stab at
> fixing the problems, and checked it into a NAMESPACE branch under cvs.
>
> Has anyone had a chance to look at it yet? Any comments?

Ok, it builds and runs on my machine.  Seems to add the correct code to 
my dotfiles when I run surfraw-update-path(1).  sr and surfraw commands 
both seem to work fine (didn't test every elvi, but a few).

> A possible problem with the namespace stuff and surfraw-update-path: I
> was reading debian-policy, and it mentioned that packages should not
> modify /etc/profile, as it belongs to base-files. Is that specifically
> because it is in base-files, or because it belongs to a package other
> than surfraw? Is the fact that we ask in debconf first enough to make
> it ok?  If not, how about if we changed the question to a note and
> just told them about surfraw-update-path? would that satisfy policy?

Packages can't modify /etc/profile because they aren't base-files (i.e. 
because it belongs to a package other than surfraw).  People on 
debian-devel have been quite vocal that just because you ask in 
debconf, you still can't violate policy.  Changing the question to a 
note would seem to satisfy policy better.  (I'm still not sure about 
program modifying conffiles and dotfiles, but I'm willing to go along 
for the ride on that :-)

So, I guess, change it to a note.  Also, if you don't mind, can we also 
put a copy of the relevant lines under /usr/share/doc someplace (like 
in the README or so) ?

> I've checked in (NAMESPACE branch too) two of the elvi Moritz
> Muehlenhoff <jmm@informatik.uni-bremen.de> posted to bug #217799
>
> leo: for dict.leo.org a german<->english dictionary.
> I've added option handling to this, and renamed it to leodict, as it
> looks like leo.org provides various other searchable services.
>
> happypenguin: for www.happypenguin.org, a linux games site.
> I didn't bother adding options for this, as it looks like the search
> interface may be in flux.

These both seem to work ok on my machine too.  Thanks for checking them 
in.

> I haven't checked in grgoogle, a groups.google.com elvi, but it brings
> up the question of should we rename the deja elvi to something more
> obviously googley.

I'm fine doing this either way (renaming it, or keeping it the same).

> I've also upped the Standards-Version in both branches to 3.6.1.0
> As far as I can tell, no changes are needed for this.
>
> One perplexing thing, which could be my setup. While building the
> NAMESPACE branch, it kept screwing up (something to do with prefix)
> and tried to write/delete surfraw files from the actual system. I
> fixed this by changing prefix= to DESTDIR= in debian/rules (which
> incidently solves the problem with ELVIDIR in configure.in). However,
> the main branch still builds fine using prefix= in debian/rules. I've
> run fakeroot debian/rules clean, aclocal, automake, autoconf on both
> branches, but the discrepancy remains. Odd. I've also run into similar
> prefix-related weirdness messing with some other packages (perl modules
> that used MakeMaker). any ideas?

I think you are supposed to use DESTDIR, anyway.  In any case, I think 
we should upload a version based on the NAMESPACE branch, and basically 
make that HEAD from now on.  Conveniently, that gets rid of any 
problems with the current HEAD as well :-)

Any objections?  If not, Christian or Thomas, could you make that 
upload?

Thanks,
Kevin