On Thursday 29 June 2006 09:40, Ryan Heise was like: > On Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 09:20:11AM +0100, tim hall wrote: > > actually compiling it from source shouldn't be particularly > > complicated. I know there is a psychological brick wall around package > > building > > Problems with users trying to compile source code (on debian): > > - It is often necessary to install certain -dev packages first. At the > same time, it is rarely obvious to a user that a missing -dev package > is the reason for it not compiling. man auto-apt > - Mixing package-managed programs and manually-compiled programs gets > messy. E.g. If the user compiles/installs from source, and then > finally a proper package becomes available. It is not straightforward > to cleanly upgrade from the self-compiled version to the packaged > version. Yes, this is precisely why we're talking about creating a .deb rather than suggesting to users that it would be just as easy to compile it from source. Personally, I would prefer to get comfortable with the process of making packages for newly compiled applications so it can be managed by apt. Once a debianised source package has been created, it would be possible to use apt-build in a similar way to the Gentoo system, although in most cases that would be unnecessary. > Problems with developers trying to maintain packages: > > - Too many package formats. > - Too complicated package formats. > > But developers should (I think) take on the responsibility to make > things easier for users. Some upstream authors will be happy to do this, others won't. This is really distro maintenance work. It may be possible to sponsor important applications into the main tree via debian-multimedia, where they will trickle down into DeMuDi, Ubuntu Universe and other derived distros eventually. If there would be problems with that (e.g. violations of DFSG) it would still be worth making the .deb available for the upstream author to distribute themselves. If we want to see things happen I think we have to take the attitude that it's up to 'us' rather than 'them'. ;) -- cheers, tim hall http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim We are the people We've been waiting for.
