On Sun, 2006-09-17 at 11:58 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote: > Paul Howarth wrote: > > On Sat, 2006-09-16 at 22:08 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote: > >> Hey guys, > >> It's come to my attention that we don't have a "Packages must be built > >> from source, no precompiled binaries" rule in the current guidelines. I > >> think this is an oversight as the Binary Firmware section: > >> http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#BinaryFirmware > >> > >> implies this for the specific case of firmware. > >> > >> How about something like: > >> > >> "Packages must be built from source code. Including pre-built programs > >> or libraries is strictly forbidden. A select few exceptions are made > >> for binary firmware. Please see > >> http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#BinaryFirmware > >> for details." > >> > >> And on ReviewGuidelines: > >> "Must: The package must be built from source. No pre-built programs or > >> libraries are acceptable." > >> > >> Thoughts, opinions welcome. > > > > Might another exception be needed for the bootstrapping procedures for > > new compilers, e.g. some of the lisp/haskell compilers in Extras? > > bootstrapping is kinda a separate problem. The proposal here is that > *Packages* must be built from source, which I tend to I agree with, in > principle. The "source" in question, can potentially include binary > bits (for bootstrapping, whatever). You can't separate these problems, because problems in bootstrapping are primary the reason (Typically either circular deps large dependency chains) or for open-source packages to contain binaries (of open-sourced sources). A classical example for such cases are emulators: They typically need a some "k-byte piece of Firmware", having to be compiled by a cross-toolchain. I.e. to rebuild them from scratch, you'd first have to have this cross-toolchain. If your're lucky such a cross-toolchain is buildable, but several 100MB in size. If you're out of luck, such a toolchain doesn't exist for linux, but only for some other OS (Open source != Linux; Open-source != buildable by open source). Packagers often circumvent this "ugly dependency chain", by shipping binaries. Now consider pdf or ps documents - People often use foreign tools to write them - They are binaries having been built from closed source, aren't they? Ralf -- Fedora-packaging mailing list Fedora-packaging@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-packaging
