[aur-general] virtualbox-extension-pack vs. virtualbox-ext-oracle

[Christian Hesse]

Laurent Carlier <lordheavym at gmail.com> on Mon, 2014/08/04 23:11:
> Le lundi 4 août 2014, 18:15:32 Christian Hesse a écrit :
> > Hello everybody,
> > 
> > following a lengthy discussion sublu just deleted my package
> > virtualbox-extension-pack from AUR. This is what his package
> > (virtualbox-ext-oracle) does:
> > 
> > * Install an archive file.
> > * Use install script to copy a number of files to /usr without pacman
> > knowing about it.
> > 
> > I think this is the wrong way, so I created my own package
> > (virtualbox-extension-pack) that tries to get it right:
> > 
> > * Just install the files required, "ready to use" for virtualbox.
> > * No crappy install script required!
> > 
> > My package had about 75 votes IIRC, probably there would have been more if
> > more people knew about the details. The discussing had a number of
> > comments that agreed about my opinion regarding installing/coping files
> > to /usr with pacman or the install script.
> > 
> > Although I think it is wrong seblu is free to provide his package via AUR.
> > But is there any good reason mine is not allowed to reside there?
> 
> I've checked both packages, then i've also checked virtualbox
> documentation. Documentation is available at
> http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/
> * Ch8.36. VBoxManage extpack *
> <<The "extpack" command allows you to add or remove VirtualBox extension 
> packs, as described in Section 1.5, “Installing VirtualBox and extension 
> packs”.>>
> In regards of VirtualBox docs, Seblu is installing extension pack the
> proper way.

Mozilla provides a tarball named firefox-31.0.tar.bz2. We could make pacman
install that, then use the install script to extract the package and run
install.sh. No?

What upstream recommends is a way that should work on all distribution,
ignoring the distribution's tools. I do not think this is the way to follow if
we can get it better. Files in /usr should be tracked by pacman, with some
really rare exceptions only. In my opinion virtualbox or its dependencies are
not.

> Your package isn't following upstream way to install extension package and
> you are not sure it will keep working, you are just lucky.

I can update my package whenever upstream changes how things work. So what?
Packages are modified all the time.

> Your package is only a duplicated package of seblu's one, only differing on
> the way to install extension pack files isn't a good reason enough. Seblu
> was right to remove your package, there was an explanation before
> suppressing, rules were followed.
> 
> Nothing more to say.

I do not agree.
This is pretty stupid. My package does not hurt anybody and a lot of people
do want to use it.
-- 
main(a){char*c=/*    Schoene Gruesse                         */"B?IJj;MEH"
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putchar(b-1/(/*               gcc -o sig sig.c && ./sig    */b/42*2-3)*42);}
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