[aur-general] The Arch Way

[Magnus Therning]

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 16:44, Philipp Überbacher <hollunder at lavabit.com> wrote:
> Excerpts from Ng Oon-Ee's message of 2010-09-10 17:40:35 +0200:
>> On Fri, 2010-09-10 at 10:16 -0500, Thomas Dziedzic wrote:
>> > On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Christoph <chrdr at gmx.at> wrote:
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > > I have just adopted the package xmind
>> > > (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=22394) because the former maintainer
>> > > disowned it, and I am not shure which is the best way to build the package.
>> > >
>> > > There are three possibilities:
>> > >
>> > > 1) Building from source
>> > > 2) Building from the "Portable" zip-file (see http://www.xmind.net/downloads/)
>> > > 3) Building from the deb-files provided for Debian/Ubuntu (see
>> > > http://www.xmind.net/downloads/)
>> > >
>> > > ad 1)
>> > > This is what you would usually do, but according to
>> > > http://groups.google.com/group/xmind-dev/browse_thread/thread/d68d0c8f30b4b42c
>> > > the eclipse ide would be a prerequisite, so that would need a very large
>> > > download if you do not already have installed eclipse (nearly 170 MB for
>> > > eclipse plus 10 MB for the xmind source code!)
>> > >
>> > > ad 2)
>> > > This was the way the former maintainer went. Download size: 75 MB
>> > > The portable zip-file contains both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions, so the
>> > > PKGBUILD just had to copy the right files.
>> > >
>> > > ad 3)
>> > > When I proposed (a year ago) to use the deb-files instead in order to have
>> > > smaller downloads (each of them, 32-bit and the 64-bit has appr. 36 MB), the
>> > > maintainer told me that this would be ugly and "not the Arch way", that he
>> > > would not do such a thing. When I told him that I did not get the point of it,
>> > > since the zip file equally just installed ready-built binaries, he did not
>> > > respond to it.
>> > >
>> > > I still think that using the deb-files would - in this special case - be the
>> > > best option. But of course I would never dare to deviate from "the Arch way"
>> > > (since it is the way to world domination, as we all know ;-)).
>> > >
>> > > What do you think?
>> > >
>> > > Christoph
>> > >
>> >
>> > I always prefer a package build from source, but if it's provided in a
>> > portable zip, that is a valid option in this instance. I would say go
>> > with option 2.
>> >
>> > Cheers!
>>
>> It looks like in this case the content of the portable zip is identicaly
>> (just about) to the content of the deb, just that the debs are
>> arch-specific. I'd think its simpler to just go with option 3. Its
>> surprising that any project REQUIRES eclipse to build though, eclipse
>> can generate makefiles which can be shipped with source....
>
> That's why I'd go with option four, kindly ask upstream to fix this.

What exactly is eclipse used for here (I'm completely ignorant, having never
used eclipse myself, so please enlighten me)?

Would it be an option to perform the step requiring eclipse and ship the
result as a patch with the source?

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                        (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
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