R: [Gdal-dev] [ANNOUNCE] gdal debian package at mentors.debian.ne t

[Frank Warmerdam]

Amici Alessandro wrote:
> Frank,
> 
> in connection with my effort to get a debian package in shape, i'd like 
> to ask you a few questions:
> - are you interested (i guess yes, but... better ask :)?
> - wuold you spend a minute to double check things like package descriptions,
> README.Debian and copyright files, and bless/correct them?
> 
> moreover i have three problems with the gdal build system, that you might 
> find of general interest:
> - [TRIVIAL] stuff under /usr/local/include is installed 0755 (should be 
> 0644). the same for /usr/local/python?.?/site-packages/, but some python 
> files _are_ scripts (so that 0755 is ok) and other are only modules (no 
> #!/usr/bin/python) and those should be 0644. Debian build system is very 
> picky about these things!

Alessandro,

If you provide patches for this, I am happy to have them applied.
Ideally this should be automated in the sense that the install
target should check each file for "#!/usr/bin/python" to decide if
it should be executable or not.   If we have file lists it will be
harder to maintain properly.

> - the 'docs' target is... well 'messy'. expecially on a dial-up system. 
> it would be nice to have it cleaned up.

I hadn't really seen the docs target as something that would be
widely run.  I guess part of the problem is the way it refreshes
a few files from CVS after deleting everything?  This could be
re-engineered to push the special files into a safe place before
blowing everything away, and then restore from there.

> - it wuold be very nice to have a real shared library with soname 
> (actually the debian policy mandates it). this has been already 
> discussed several times. what is the situation?

For GDAL 1.2.0 I would like to do this right (more or less ... not
using libtool though), and for now I would suggest we modify the
configure to allow the configurer to provide an "LD_SHARED" command.
The Debian build can provide one that correctly sets up the -soname
option.

It would likely be best if I provide CVS access for you so you can
do the patching directly, though I would like to be appraised of
changes you make.

Best regards,

-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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