Re: Source distribution

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2002 at 04:29:40PM -0500, Tom Hart wrote:
> Still, it *is* confusing, and although GNU and Debian are separate 
> entities, they are closely related. Perhaps the page could say,
>
> "GNU distribues the Hurd sources only through CVS at present; users of 
> Debian GNU/Linux can also obtain the Hurd sources as source debs."
> 
> In particular, I'm thinking of newbies coming to the Hurd site. This 
> could confuse them.

Everybody, not only users of Debian, can get the sources of the Hurd from
the Debian ftp server.  But this is not the primary source.   Debian gets
this source by checking out the CVS repository and making it a tar file.
(I know because I am the person doing it :)

In addition, the Debian sources contains changes to the Hurd sources that
are not part of the Hurd.  Although the original tar file in Debian reflects
the CVS repository accurately (because I am careful enough about it), this
can not guaranteed.

In any case, the Debian servers are outside of GNU's control.  It would be
plain wrong to refer to them as a distribution point of the Hurd sources.
In foreseeable future the Hurd source package at Debian will also be
maintained by someone who is not a Hurd maintainer, or a GNU person at all,
maybe.  Then this becomes even more true.

There are several thousand source packages at Debian, most of which are
maintained upstream externally, and which don't refer back to the Debian
archive.  This is the first time I hear that it causes confusion.

Thanks,
Marcus


-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    address@hidden
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
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