Re: bitpim binary modules breaks Gentoo QA policies

"Roger Binns" <[email protected]> writes:

> Do you cx_Freeze it in any way or just run from the .py files?

I just run from the .py files.  (I don't believe Debian includes
cx_Freeze, or would approve of using it, as it would increase the set
of packages directly affected by [security-]critical Python bugs.)

> I assume you compile the various modules inside BitPim such
> as native.usb and native.strings.

Right; I also build bmp2avi from source, and symlink to Debian's
copies of ffmpeg and the relevant netpbm programs.

> Note also that must run python with -OO

I've been using just -O, but that's easy enough to adjust.

> Let us know if there is anything we can put in the released
> packages that would make your life easier.

There are two things that would be nice:

- Official man pages, in either roff or DocBook format.  It's okay if
  these defer to the existing HTML documentation for most details, but
  there should still be *something*.  (Debian's policy requires a man
  page for every program in the standard path; I've thrown minimal
  ones together, but would appreciate it if you could take them over.
  I'll be happy to send you copies of what I've written/cribbed.)

- A comprehensive top-level makefile would greatly simplify the Debian
  build scripts, which currently have to handle all the subcomponents
  that require native compilation individually.

Thanks!

> From now on, instead of CVS tags the code will need to be grabbed
> from https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/bitpim/releases/1.2.3 where
> 1.2.3 is the release name.

Yeah, I caught that, and greatly approve, as I also find Subversion a
lot saner than CVS, not that that's terribly difficult. ;-)

> BTW what is the Python version available on Debian?  Can multiple
> versions be installed at the same time (Gentoo uses something
> called slots to accomplish that).

2.3(.5) is the default, but 2.4(.2) is also available, and
coinstallable.  The wxPython packages currently tie me to 2.3, though.

> I'd dearly love to get rid of DSV as Python 2.3 introduced a library
> csv module.  Sadly it doesn't handle unicode.

Ah, I was wondering why you hadn't switched over; thanks for the
explanation.

> Robin was away for a while.  Now that he is back the pace of wxPython
> releases should resume including bug fixes.

Glad to hear it.

> ReleaseForge is a gui app using Qt.  In that sense it is a marginal
> improvement over the web page interface supplied by SourceForge,
> but it just changes whose silly buttons you have to press.

Sigh.  I take it there's no good way to rip out its GUI and just use
the underlying engine?

-- 
Aaron M. Ucko, KB1CJC (amu at alum.mit.edu, ucko at debian.org)
Finger [email protected] (NOT a valid e-mail address) for more info.


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