Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging

From	Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.devel
Subject	Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging
Date	2021-08-16 03:20 +0200
Message-ID	<CMzse-EO-7@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
Organization	Debian

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Hi all,

I noticed that sometimes Debian's choice of upstream source for
packaging can be suboptimal. This is especially apparent for the
different per-language upstream packaging ecosystems[1], where the
upstream packaging differs from the upstream VCS in some significant
ways, including missing files, prebuilt files, embedded copies etc.

While the upstream VCS also sometimes has these issues, it is often
much less problematic than the upstream packaging ecosystems.

I'd like to suggest that we standardise on the upstream VCS for our
orig.tar.gz files and phase out use of upstream packaging ecosystems.

For packages where the upstream packaging uses a tarball and it is
accompanied by an OpenPGP signature, and the differences between the
upstream VCS and the tarball aren't too problematic, we could use the
tarball in preference to the VCS due to having a signature.

While discussing PyPI with the Python team, it was pointed out that
sometimes the tarball contains things that cannot be regenerated from
just the VCS snapshot, such as information stored in the VCS history,
so perhaps the recommendation should be to prefer the VCS but always
compare the VCS with upstream tarballs and packaging ecosystem tarballs
using diffoscope in order to discover differences important to Debian.

I'd also like to see upstream tarball export systems switch to plain
VCS exports plus additional tarballs for files like autotools cruft.

If there is rough consensus we could add lintian complaints when Debian
watch files or copyright source locations refer to these ecosystems.

1. the ecosystems I'm talking about include cargo, npm, browser
extensions, rubygems, pypi, CPAN etc.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-16 03:20 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2021-08-16 15:40 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2021-08-16 22:20 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Pirate Praveen <praveen@onenetbeyond.org> - 2021-08-16 22:30 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-17 08:50 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Pirate Praveen <praveen@onenetbeyond.org> - 2021-08-17 10:40 +0200
          Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Luca Boccassi <bluca@debian.org> - 2021-08-17 12:10 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-17 09:00 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Antonio Terceiro <terceiro@debian.org> - 2021-08-17 16:20 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-17 14:20 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> - 2021-08-17 16:00 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de> - 2021-08-17 19:00 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> - 2021-08-17 19:20 +0200
          Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de> - 2021-08-19 09:20 +0200
            Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> - 2021-08-19 10:40 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-18 05:10 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-18 11:00 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2021-08-26 00:00 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sune Vuorela <nospam@vuorela.dk> - 2021-08-17 20:30 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> - 2021-08-18 10:20 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-19 05:10 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2021-08-25 01:30 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Phil Morrell <debian@emorrp1.name> - 2021-08-25 02:10 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-25 12:10 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Brian Thompson <debian@brianrthompson.com> - 2021-08-26 03:00 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-27 10:00 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2021-08-27 23:00 +0200
          Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-29 13:50 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2021-08-25 16:20 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> - 2021-08-25 16:40 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-25 16:40 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Phil Morrell <debian@emorrp1.name> - 2021-08-25 18:50 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-25 21:40 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2021-08-26 16:20 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> - 2021-08-26 16:50 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2021-08-27 10:00 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2021-08-27 23:00 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu> - 2021-08-25 17:10 +0200
      Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2021-08-25 19:10 +0200
        Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2021-08-27 23:00 +0200
    Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2021-08-27 23:00 +0200
    Re: Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging Nicholas Guriev <nicholas@guriev.su> - 2021-08-29 17:30 +0200
  Re: Debian choice of upstream tarballs for packaging gregor herrmann <gregoa@debian.org> - 2021-09-26 11:10 +0200

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