On 9/30/05, Eivind Eklund <eivind / freebsd.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 09:46:45AM +0900, Jim Weirich wrote:
>> Take the rake project for example.  Rake is distributed as both a gem
>> and a tar file. Given that the same software is delivered in both
>> package formats, would you prefer to start with the tar file?  And if
>> so, why?  What specific changes would make it easier for repackagers?
> Stop guaranteeing that things are installed in a single directory, and
> work with more stringent metadata instead.  Specific references for
> specific subdirectories, to be able to *both* generate as a single
> directory (necessary for e.g. Gentoo) *and* generate spread out, with
> readable data under libdata/, variable data under /var, etc.
>
> This is a significant change, with implications for many gems, which
> is why I've tried to push this for a long time (from when there were
> much fewers gems and much fewer authors affected.)

And this is precisely why I've made the list of proposals that I've
made for separate arch/independent and datadir stuff. *That by itself*
is a signficant change, but is also probably sufficient to fix the main
issues with repackaging. Everything else is just icing -- but very
useful icing.

-austin
--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue / gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin / halostatue.ca