Special packaging case

[Matt Palmer]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2005 at 10:07:28AM +0200, Loic Pefferkorn wrote:
> I'm trying to package a program, k9copy,  which needs a modified version of 
> another software (vamps) to work properly.
> 
> The special version is provided on the k9copy's website, by the author.
> 
> How should I handle this for packaging ?

Is the modified version of vamps able to be used in a backwards-compatible
manner by other vamps users?  Or is vamps severely "butchered" by the
changes?

If the former, I'd suggest trying to get the Debian/Ubuntu vamps maintainer
to include the patches necessary for k9copy in that package, and try to push
those changes upstream to vamps upstream so that everyone keeps in sync.

If the latter, then providing the hacked copy of vamps is probably the best
short-term solution.  Longer term, I'd try and get k9copy's author to either
(a) get the vamps patches to a generally usable state, and then get them
into vamps proper, or (b) fork vamps properly and stop this confusing
dickering around.

The new deb source format will make it significantly easier to ship a
modified copy of vamps, I note with some interest...

- Matt

-- 
"All I care about [a linux distro] is it detect my hardware (non-Debian
strengths), and teach me to fish instead of just giving me a smelly old fish
(most people 'xcept Debian), and I guess don't just give me a fish biology
textbook (gentoo)."		-- Tom (in d-devel)