Re: fibers release bits [was: Re: Moving Fibers to Codeberg]

On 12/3/2025 4:14 PM, Greg Troxel wrote:
> I can cope, but I would ask if there is anybody else (packaging, not
> people wanting to hack on fibers) that thinks not having a tarball is
> ok.

Yes. (Has been a while since I did packaging  stuff.)

Git checkouts tend to have less binaries. Unlike tarballs, where often  
"configure" and "Makefile.in" binaries are added. Convenient for 
build-from-source (if you use 'configure' without compiling it yourself, 
it's not a full from source)! Convenient for proper bootstrapping (not 
essential since you could automatically recognise these binaries and 
remove them, though that didn't go anywhere).

And slightly reduces risk of malware (configure.ac much smaller than 
configure, way easier to check for malware).

(Just because they are textual and readable, doesn't make them not 
binaries. It's compiled,  so it's a binary and not source. Or don't call 
them binaries if you don't want to and call the process something 
different than 'compilation', but that's just a terminology thing. It's 
still not source.)

Well, ok, there should actually be tarball (or zip etc.). But they don't 
have to contain (and preferably don't contain) "configure" and 
"Makefile.in" (*). A long time in the past, where package managers were 
kind of absent you couldn't just "[cmd] install autoconf automake", 
those were important to include ... But you are adding something to a 
package manager / distribution (and not a super new one) that does 
compilation, so I'd expect autoconf and automake to be available?

(*) except for stuff like gcc, make, bash, ... where otherwise there 
would be a loop in the absence of an elaborate bootstrapping process.

Best regards,
Amélie Devos