Re: ask-2.5.0 - a new package for review

[Charles Wilson <cygwin at cwilson dot fastmail dot fm>]

Robert Collins wrote:
> That said, I really don't think we want to formalise the package
> creation script. If we -really- are heading to compatibility with any
> existing format, surely our efforts are bested directed to achieving
> that, not to (relatively minor) fiddling within our adhoc format.

Agreed.

In my dream world, setup.exe will interoperate with both deb and rpm 
packages.  There will be tools (or libraries) that allow synchronization 
of the various databases (deb's installed, /var/rpm/*, and 
/etc/setup/*).  Setup.exe will update all of them.  Cygwinized rpm and 
apt tools will update all of them.

And we will be able to use any of those tools to install stuff: setup, 
rpm&derivatives, apt&derivatives.

And we (package maintainers) will be able to use debian or rpm tools to 
package our stuff, and we'll eventually migrate away from tarballs.

That's my dream.  But it'll take years to get there, and I'm not in a hurry.

To tell you the truth, I think a nice interim step would be a tool of 
some sort that leveraged deb/rpm packages, to create setup-compatible 
tarballs, complete with taking rpm-style post/pre scripts and "putting 
them in the right place" so that setup will do the right thing.

Then, for instance, we could simply use rpm tools to create an rpm -- 
and then run rpm2setup to create the distributable tarball and src tarball.

Ditto .deb.

I think this is a better path to take than worrying about cygbuild vs 
mknetrel vs generic-pkg-script vs....

--Chuck