Outdated packaging in packaging/Debian

[Steve Langasek]

On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 05:29:27AM -0500, Andrew Kroeger wrote:

> Please do not take this the wrong way, but Samba is far too dynamic to  
> allow downstream sources to be the ultimate authority WRT packaging.

Debian and Ubuntu are far too dynamic to allow upstream sources to be the
ultimate authority WRT packaging. :)  Effectively, all that packaging is is
a four-year-old snapshot of Debian's own packaging.  None of the packaging
changes that have been made in Debian and Ubuntu to keep Samba up-to-date on
integration with the OS are reflected there.  Even after you fix the
unsatisfiable build-dependencies (python2.3-dev was dropped from Debian
before the etch release, over two years ago), you can't even use that
packaging for things like building cifs.upcall, needed if you're doing
kerberos-secured kernel CIFS mounts - so not only has that packaging
directory not kept pace with OS integration, it's not kept pace with Samba's
own development.

$ diff -uNr packaging/Debian/debian-unstable/ debian/ --exclude .svn --exclude patches --exclude po| diffstat | tail -n 1
 89 files changed, 4194 insertions(+), 1364 deletions(-)
$

> If the goal is to prevent Samba team members from being responsible for  
> the Samba packaging for a given named distribution, please provide links  
> within the proposed README to the Samba wiki so that packaging  
> contributions can be made by all.

I think the goal is clearly to stop carrying stale packaging data for which
*no one* is responsible.

> Allowing downstream packagers to build their own distributions of Samba  
> packages is the nature of the FOSS community.  However, not providing  
> packaging resources to those who wish to "roll their own" packages from  
> any given Samba snapshot seems to me to be telling those who are  
> following Samba development that they're on their own - not that there's  
> a community behind them.

Thanks to the efforts of Christian Perrier, Samba pre-releases are tracked
quite closely in Debian experimental.  Users who wish to build packages of
snapshots are much better off using that as a base to work from.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org