[CrackMonkey] The right to bare legs

[Joey Hess]

Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> * New version of Gimp is released. Gimp of course is not a Gnome
> application.
> * Some lackey at Helix Code says "whoah, this is cool" and uploads it,
> _USING THE VERSION NUMBER $GIMPVERSION-helix1._
> * He realizes it needs AALib, which is not available in Potato.

Not available in potato?

joey at kite:~>ssh ftp-master.debian.org locate aalib | grep potato | grep binary-i386
/org/ftp.debian.org/ftp/dists/potato/main/binary-i386/libs/aalib-bin_1.2-25.deb
/org/ftp.debian.org/ftp/dists/potato/main/binary-i386/libs/aalib1-dev_1.2-25.deb
/org/ftp.debian.org/ftp/dists/potato/main/binary-i386/libs/aalib1_1.2-25.deb

... made me look.

> Note that the Gimp/AALib example IS real.

Well, you piqued my curiosity.

joey at kite:~/tmp/h3l1xc0d3/aalib-1.2>diff -ur ~/debian/packages/aalib .
--- /home/joey/debian/packages/aalib/debian/changelog   Sun Jun 18 15:59:50 2000
+++ ./debian/changelog  Thu Aug 24 18:50:34 2000
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+aalib (1.2-helix1) unstable; urgency=low
+
+  * package for Helix GNOME
+
+ -- Peter Teichman <peter at helixcode.com>  Mon, 31 Jul 2000 15:17:46 -0400
+
 aalib (1.2-29) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Corrected aalib-bin symlink, Closes: #65828

So this is my package, modified. BTW, Helix people, the point of a changelog
is to record your *changes*. HTH.

--- /home/joey/debian/packages/aalib/debian/control     Thu Jul 13 06:27:33 2000
+++ ./debian/control    Thu Aug 24 18:50:34 2000
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 Source: aalib
 Section: libs
 Priority: optional
-Maintainer: Joey Hess <joeyh at debian.org>
+Maintainer: Helix Code, Inc. <debian at helixcode.com>
 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 1.1.17), slang1-dev, xlib6g-dev, libncurses5-dev, libgpmg1-dev, autoconf, libtool
 Standards-Version: 3.1.1.1

Let's grab my package away, and....

 Package: aalib1-dev
 Architecture: any
+Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
 Depends: aalib1 (>= 1.2-18), libc6-dev
 Description: ascii art library, development kit
  AAlib is a portable ascii art graphics library. Internally, it works like

... make a modification, which, if you know a fair amount about the Debian
packaging system (or just build the thing and pay attention to what happens), 
you will eventually realize is a no-op. The intent of this modification seems
to have been to break the dependencies of the package, but the way they tried
to do it was wholly unsuccessful and changed nothing.


So helix folks, why did you do it? Why did you not contact me before or
afterwards, and inform me about what you were doing? Why didn't you mention
it to me when I met several of you at Linuxworld?

What do you intend to do when I continue to develop aalib in the -2x tree,
making modifications which due to your absurd version number, will not be
visible to people using helix gnome?

BTW, I'm not about to introduce an epoch into the debian package. So you're
basically stuck dealing with this in some way or another. As I continue
to develop the package, you will either have to ignore my bugfixes to
the detriment of your customers, or manually port them into your pointless
fork.

Good day.

-- 
see shy jo