[aur-general] Building a git version of a package already present in the official repositories

[Sven-Hendrik Haase]

On 05/26/2012 12:58 PM, Muflone wrote:
> Hello
>
> In the AUR section of the Arch Packaging Standards guide [1] we can
> read that a package must not build any of applications in the official
> repositories.
>
> At the moment the extra/strace 4.7-1 package uses the most updated
> released version of the application but the current version has a
> defect with custom kernel version numbers (eg. the 3.3-pf) which
> renders the tool unusable at all.
> Such bug has been fixed in the git repository [2] but the author has
> not yet released an updated version.
>
> Would be allowed to build a strace-git package to always pick the most
> recent version from the git repo, even if it builds a binary
> application present in the official repos?
> What guidelines should be followed to avoid conflicting packages?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> [1]
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Packaging_Standards#Submitting_packages_to_the_AUR
> [2]
> http://strace.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=strace/strace;a=commitdiff;h=0dbc80de895c25769791b7726022a274695eec31;hp=55980f5b72000406e3fd843b098b5c1328a21e45
>
What is the problem? You may submit a strace-git package to the AUR as
it is not merely an updated fixed version of the official package.
However, you are strongly discouraged to post a package like strace-new
that you made because of a new upstream release if the Arch package lags
a few days behind.

The best solution, though, would be to bug the strace author to make a
new release in order to fix this problem for everyone. This way, you'd
likely have a usable strace in Arch within a day.