Re: OpenMash Debian packages.

[Lloyd Lim <lim@bmrc.berkeley.edu>]

This is from a while back, but I wanted to clear up a point about 
redistribution...

On Friday 01 February 2002 06:11 am, David Martinez CSIC RedIRIS wrote:
>
>> Please make sure that you state clearly somewhere that you've
>> modified our source.  It'd also be good to append something to the
>> version number to identify it as a Debian variant.
>
>	Heh...you seem to don't know really how linux distributions work:
>
>	(please, this isn't a flame :-)
>
>	In Debian we have two types of packages: Debian-native and external
>packages. Debian-native ones have version numbers like 2.4.1, because
> the Debian maintainer and upstream author is the same (and he doesn't
> mind to make a new upstream release for fixing Debian bugs). External
> packages _always_ has a -debian_version suffix, like -2.1.
> openmash-tools_5.1.6-3 stands for "binary package for openmash-tools
> version 5.1.6 upstream, Debian revision 3".
>
>	So the very existence of the -3 suffix indicates that at some point
> the upstream sources has been modified (even the inclusion of debian/
> directory in order to build the software is a modification). We will
> maintain in the archives an openmash_5.1.6.orig.tar.gz file and
>openmash_5.1.6-{1,2,3...}.diff.gz files. The integrity of your
> software is preserved (although I've included some words in
> debian/copyright about the fact that otcl-tclcl are downloaded from
> www.openmash.org and splitted from the openmash tarball).

I understand what you're saying.  What I strongly recommend is that you 
not only append your Debian suffix to the package, but you also modify 
the mash-code/mash/VERSION file.  This will ensure that when a user 
fires up a Debian vic or vat, they will see the version number with a 
Debian suffix and know that something is different.

In general, I ask that anyone who is modifying and redistributing Mash 
make it clear to end users that the redistributed tools are different 
than ours.  At the minimum, this should include some sort of README and 
some kind of modification of the version number in the VERSION file.  
This will help reduce the headaches in tracking down bugs.

>> If things keep going the way they're going, the MBone community
>> isn't going to have *any* actively supported tools soon.
>
> [...]  It's very sad that
> people like you don't find monetary support from any source.

Since my presence depends on such support, I have to agree.

>	What makes me wonder is that almost all the tools for Mbone came from
>doctorates, students doing their thesis, and the like, people that
> sooner or later leave their projects, and not from group of people
> more or less constant. It seems that some in the Open Source
> philosophy doesn't cope with Mbone-related projects.

The students working here are free to work on new features.  They don't 
have to worry about packaging releases, compatibility with different 
compilers/platforms/hardware, testing, or maintaining the development 
infrastructure.  Staff tries to handle that.

Mash could continue on without staff.  Students and outside volunteers 
would have to fill the gaps.

Lloyd