[PD-dev] proper debs (pure:dyne+pd-extended = good)

[Claude Heiland-Allen]

Hi Hans, all,

Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> I don't know if any of the active pure:dyne packagers are on this list, 
> but I thought I'd try.  From what I have seen, it looks like pure:dyne 
> is doing a much better job of making .deb packages than Pd-extended.  I 
> would be great to 'officially' merge efforts so that we don't duplicate 
> work.

Sure, we strive for high quality packages.  Regarding duplication of 
work, the pure:dyne wiki [1] has some packaging tips, the main thing is 
to get a good source.deb that can then be built for any Debian-based 
distro.  We have a pbuilder machine ready to compile packages, if anyone 
wants to help broaden the range of pure data related packages in 
pure:dyne (and eventually Debian main) you are more than welcome to join 
in the effort.

[1] 
http://code.goto10.org/projects/puredyne/wiki/DevLounge#SoftwarePackaging

Regarding pd-extended, pure:dyne is based on pd-vanilla, which we've 
found to be quite stable, while pd-extended seems to have more 
experimental patches that don't always work out.

Also pd-extended's policy of splitting every library into tiny pieces 
solves one problem but causes others, so I think it was slightly 
premature to do the splitting until the other issues are fixed. 
pure:dyne policy as far as there is one is to build the way the 
author(s) intended, resulting in a mix of libraries and single-object 
externals - but our job as packagers (in the .deb sense) isn't to save 
the pd universe with some grand architecture, but simply to make 
packages available for users :)

> Then we can make some really nice, proper packages and get them 
> into Debian.

Makes sense, that's one of the key aims of pure:dyne too.

> DebConf 2010 is in NYC, and I'll be helping to run it, so 
> it would be great to have all this in Debian by then.  Plus, it seems 
> that Guenter has less time for the Debian packages, so things like the 
> pd-externals package has lapsed.

That sounds like a good target.  The pd-externals package is long 
obsolete (last updated 2004 iirc).

> It seems to me that the next step would be to get the pure:dyne stuff 
> into pure-data SVN, then make any tweaks to it to make it work with 
> Pd-extended too.

We're more than happy to be good packagers and report bugs upstream, 
with any build patches required, but ideally there would be more 
upstream releases of known-quality code - currently it is still a bit 
hit-and-miss for some externals/libraries to know if there are 
unfinished pieces of code that will be fixed the next day or two, which 
acts as a disincentive for packagers to put the effort in to package 
from the svn.

Personally I'm not in favour of keeping debian/ folders in the same svn 
as the upstream source code, as they have rather orthogonal purposes.


Thanks, and apologies for the length,


Claude
-- 
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