linux-mvl-dove_2.6.31-0.2_source.changes rejected

[Steve Langasek]

3On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 02:24:14PM -0600, Tim Gardner wrote:
> > So with regards to these packages, I don't think the armel flavors should be
> > depending on them or referencing them at all.  The reason the
> > "linux-headers-$kvers-$abi" packages are there is to avoid having to
> > duplicate its contents between flavors; but with one kernel flavor per
> > source package in the case of armel, there isn't actually anything to share.
> > So merging all the contents into a single
> > "linux-headers-$kvers-$abi-$flavor" package should address this.

> > But of course that's more work than just renaming the package, so I'm in no
> > hurry on this.  As I said, I don't consider this one a blocker for clearing
> > NEW.

> The reason that I feel like I have to have separate
> linux-headers-*_all.deb packages (and duplicate content) is that I'm
> dealing with multiple, incompatible source code bases. Marvell and
> Freescale don't play well upstream, so they've chose divergent paths.
> Rather then try to jam them together, we've chosen to just have a
> separate source code base for each OEM. Obviously, there are a bunch of
> header files that are unique to each vendor, while the bulk of the
> headers are the same.

Sorry, I guess I didn't make my point very clearly.  The only reason to have
the linux-headers-*_all.deb is to share the headers; headers which, in the
case of armel, *can't be shared* because they don't come from a common code
base and aren't guaranteed to be the same between flavors.  So if there's no
sharing happening, why construct an artificial linux-*-headers-*_all.deb
that's *only* going to be there in order to let the
linux-headers-$kvers-$abi-imx51 package depend on it, and a separate one
*only* for linux-headers-$kvers-$abi-dove to depend on it?  Just ship all
the headers directly in the linux-headers-$kvers-$abi-$flavor package, don't
build a linux-headers-$kvers-$abi package at all, and the namespace problem
goes away.

The only case this doesn't address is the possibility of building more than
one armel image flavor from one of the subarch source packages.  IMHO it's
reasonable in that eventual corner case to have duplication of headers
between, say, linux-headers-$kvers-$abi-imx51 and
linux-headers-$kvers-$abi-imx61; the common flavorless header package is a
space optimization, not a hard requirement for any other reason.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org