Hi

currently our archive has the feature(?) that a source package in component=
a
(like main) can build a binary package in component b (like contrib).[1]

Now, this feature is blocking (or making it way harder) to do some
database re-designs we want to do for the central archive database, so
we looked if there are real users of it. Well, yes, there are (damnit :) ):

In unstable we have

Christian Holm Christensen
root-system

Debian ALSA Maintainers lists.alioth.debian.org>
alsa-tools

Debian GNOME Maintainers lists.alioth.debian.org>
gnome-speech (U)

Debian Qt/KDE Maintainers lists.debian.org>
kdeaccessibility

Bdale Garbee gag.com>
gnuradio

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 20:47:50 +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote:

Maybe you could tell us what the benefit of dropping this would be (as
in, what are the changes you allude to, and why can't they work with
this feature).

Cheers,
Julien

Joerg Jaspert writes:

I have no opinion one way or the other on the change, but wanted to note
that Lintian had previously warned about this and we removed the warning
at the request of one of the maintainers of those packages. (Bdale, I
think, although I'm not sure.) So this feature is being intentionally
used at present.

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 08:47:50PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote:

To me, this sounds like a step in the right direction to unfuzzy the
distinction between Debian itself (main) and the other archives we provide
/support as a supplement to Debian.

--
Robert Millan

The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

* Julien Cristau [Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:38:00 +0200]:

I agree this would be useful.

I do think that allowing packages in main to provide binaries in contrib
is useful, so I'd like to hear what the benefits would be if we'd agree
to lose it.

Thanks,

--
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer adeodato at debian.org

Listening to: Luke Vibert - Harmonic

On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 01:28:49AM +0100, Adeodato Simó wrote:

I have no idea if there are technical benefits in dropping the support
for this. However, I do see a conceptual problem with the current
organization for such a border case.

*If* the directory organization in our mirrors should reflect what is
part of Debian and what is not (and note that recently this assumption
has been challenged), then the current situation is weird at best. We
have source packages located, say, under
/debian/dists/unstable/main/source/ which can possibly generated
binaries belonging to contrib/.

A user can be rightfully puzzled by such a situation: is the _source_
package she is downloading part of Debian or not?

Cheers.

Le Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 10:07:01PM -0300, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit :

Hi Stefano, Jörg, and everybody.

In the end, the contrib category is free software, so why not simply
downgrade it as a priority level, lower than "extra"? This would solve
the problem for our puzzled users as well as for the developpers
packaging software that is partially dependant on things not available
in the main archive, and the consistency of the Debian operating system
would be:
- guaranteed for packages of priority optional or higher,
- possibly conflicutal for extra packages,
- defective by missing dependancies for contrib packages.

Have a nice day,

--
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan

Charles Plessy debian.org> writes:

I'm assuming that you mean doing this instead of keeping it as a separate
distribution area.

I think it would be very surprising to have installation of a package from
the main distribution area result in downloading non-free software from
elsewhere, which is a common case for contrib packages.

--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Charles Plessy debian.org> writes:

The works in 'contrib' are free software. That's not enough for them
to be in 'main', because 'main' is defined as more than just an
arbitrary collection of free software. 'main' is the Debian operating
system, which must, when installed, be useable as a whole without
requiring non-free software on the system.

Hence, anything which can't satisfy 'main' (because, for example, it's
not useable without some non-free software) doesn't belong in 'main'.
Hence, the existence of 'contrib', to take works that are themselves
free software, but can't be part of the Debian operating system.

--
\ “Today, I was -- no, that wasn't me.” —Steven Wright |
`\ |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

Le Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 07:37:47PM -0700, Russ Allbery a écrit :

Le Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 01:07:11PM +1000, Ben Finney a écrit :

Hi again,

I think that if we were shipping a package whose description says
"Install this and you will have your 3D working" and which would
automatically download non-free software, we would indeed cheat our
users.