Re: [Hampshire] Re: Application installers

> The point is, I do not have to distribute any binary packages,

Well I do.

Some people like to build from source - *most* people want binaries
available. I'm catering for them. I'm also trying to cater for those that
want source packages - but that's where the Debian system has defeated me
- not because of some serious issue with the technology, but with a rule
that has been made & implemented within the tools.

> It works for me, so I don't see the problems you are having.

OK, here it is.

I'm making a library - let's call it libfoo.

It is forked from another library - let's call that one libbar. The two
are similar in many ways, but rather different in other ways, so it is not
appropriate to keep the same name.

So my source package should just contain the libbar tarball, my patches,
and some build scripts, right? That's what the source RPM does. But the
Debian packaging system requires all the files in the source package -
which are all listed in the .dsc file - to be called "libfoo<something>".
So I cannot just include the upstream tarball - the package will not
build.

I see this as a pointless and arbitrary decision. So there will be no
Debian source package. There will be (already is) a source RPM, which is
trivial to create.

Vic.