From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Aron Xu Subject: Re: netcat-openbsd implementations Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 17:52:23 +0800 Message-ID: References: <87d1n0fb1c.fsf@we.make.ritual.n0.is> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39508) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bJe50-0001wj-2y for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2016 05:52:47 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bJe4x-0008JI-Mo for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2016 05:52:45 -0400 Received: from mail-it0-x22a.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4001:c0b::22a]:37174) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bJe4x-0008JD-Hd for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2016 05:52:43 -0400 Received: by mail-it0-x22a.google.com with SMTP id f6so45802448ith.0 for ; Sun, 03 Jul 2016 02:52:42 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <87d1n0fb1c.fsf@we.make.ritual.n0.is> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: ng0@we.make.ritual.n0.is Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Hi, See comment below, On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 8:13 PM, wrote: > > Hi, > > I've seen you as the last person commiting to netcat-openbsd > for Debian in 2012[2]. > > I have written a package definition for netcat-openbsd for Guix. > > At Guix we don't want to maintain forks through in-tree patchsets > and avoid it whenever possible. Patches are usually for fixing > CVEs and fixing severe build problems specific to guix. > > Now this is a problem which is reflected in the thread at [0] > (discussing the netcat-openbsd package). > > Resulting from the discussion I have questions for you: > > 1. I'd like to know if Debian could merge the specific changes > applied to the OpenBSD package, available in the patches set, > into the OpenBSD GNU-linux port. > If this is not possible, could you give us the reason for it? > My impression is that at least Gentoo, Gentoo deriviates and > based systems, Archlinux, and Debian use the orig-source + > the patches tarball. > This is long overdue - my intention was to keep netcat-openbsd to track the development of the openbsd one, but it appears not happened that way. > 2. Did you try to merge more generic changes back to OpenBSD? > > From what I've seen so far, those are bug fixes and a minority > of feature fixes. > Some of them was sent, but getting few responses. > 3. There's an initial statement in the README but as many of those > are non-trivial patches, could you try and give an explanation > on why they are needed, > if they can't get merged into the Debian orig-source? > I don't treat this netcat-openbsd a full fork even if it's targeting an older revision at the moment. Also, maintaining patches are very easy using the git-buildpackage[1] tools for Debian packages. [1]https://wiki.debian.org/PackagingWithGit > > Third option I thought of, could Debian provide a tarball of > the orig-source with the patches applied, so there's no need > to conflict with systems currently pulling one or both of the > currently existing tarball. > I think it is hardly possible to provide another tarball because there's no way of doing that with current Debian infrastructure. But you can apply those patches easily using quilt[2]. In Debian, patches are applied automatically when extracting the source package using dpkg-source. [2]https://wiki.debian.org/UsingQuilt > We can apply all the patches in a way mentioned here [1], but > because we collectively maintain all the packages/source instead > of `n' specific packages per `n' specific developer(s) it would > be good in case Debian can't merge the changes to be able to > point to a reason. > For this, I ask for your permission to quote parts you give me > permission to use for, should for any reason this email > discussion not end up completely CC'ed on guix-devel. > No problem. > [0]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-06/msg00843.html > [1]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-06/msg00909.html > [2]: http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/collab-maint/netcat-openbsd.git/commit/debian?id=db2b1d9a8d4644ef892f47d84606ee96598d23fb > > > thanks, > -- Best, Aron