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Home > Archive > Debian Developers > August 2005 > Packaging a PostScript resource
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Packaging a PostScript resource
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| Terry Burton 2005-08-10, 7:58 am |
| Hi,
I have a PostScript resource that I am intending to package with the aim of
getting it into Etch. There are an increasing number of front-end
applications that are using this resource and each of these currently embeds
their own instance of it. To prevent this duplication and effectively manage
updates and version control I am looking to create a library package,
libpostscriptbarcode, or similar, on which other application packages (and
language specific APIs, when they are written) can depend.
The resource is the barcode.ps <http://barcode.ps> file from the Barcode
Writer in Pure PostScript project at
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter.
Would this be the most sensible Debian naming strategy for packaging a
PostScript resource?
libpostscriptbarcode - for the PostScript resources
libperl-postscriptbarcode - for the PERL API, etc.
Is there a maintainer who would be willing to examine the .deb and upload
it to Debian repository once I have created it.
Many thanks,
Tez
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| Terry Burton 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| Okay. I've created a Debian package for Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript at
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcod...iptbarcode.deb.
Are there any DDs willing to examine this and, if all is well, upload it
for me?
Thanks,
Tez
On 10/08/05, Terry Burton <terry.burton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I have a PostScript resource that I am intending to package with the aim
> of getting it into Etch. There are an increasing number of front-end
> applications that are using this resource and each of these currently embeds
> their own instance of it. To prevent this duplication and effectively manage
> updates and version control I am looking to create a library package,
> libpostscriptbarcode, or similar, on which other application packages (and
> language specific APIs, when they are written) can depend.
> The resource is the barcode.ps <http://barcode.ps/> file from the Barcode
> Writer in Pure PostScript project at http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter
> .
> Would this be the most sensible Debian naming strategy for packaging a
> PostScript resource?
> libpostscriptbarcode - for the PostScript resources
> libperl-postscriptbarcode - for the PERL API, etc.
> Is there a maintainer who would be willing to examine the .deb and upload
> it to Debian repository once I have created it.
> Many thanks,
> Tez
>
| |
| Alexander Schmehl 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| Dear Terry,
* Terry Burton <terry.burton@gmail.com> [050810 16:36]:
> Okay. I've created a Debian package for Barcode Writer in Pure PostScriptat
> http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcod...iptbarcode.deb.
> Are there any DDs willing to examine this and, if all is well, upload it
> for me?
I appreciate your efford, but please let me tell you, that it is
a) highly uncommon to ask for a package sponsor without an url to the
source packages.
b) your package is far from being well enough to be included in Debian.
Sorry, but let's start with some simple things: No copyright file? No
changelog? Documentation in /usr/lib/foo? And actually I fail to see
what the benefit is of having a small postscript document showing me
something about barcodes as a debian package? Or am I missing
something? The package I just took a quick view at just contains a
postscript file, nothing more.
Did you read the New Maintainers Guide, yet? It's available at
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide. Are you aware of the
debian-mentors list at http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/?
Yours sincerely,
Alexander
--
http://learn.to/quote/
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
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| Terry Burton 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| >
> I appreciate your efford, but please let me tell you, that it is
> a) highly uncommon to ask for a package sponsor without an url to the
> source packages.
PostScript is an interpretted language, so I fail to understand what you
mean by source packages in this context.
b) your package is far from being well enough to be included in Debian.
>
> Sorry, but let's start with some simple things: No copyright file? No
> changelog?
Copyright is included in the resource file. If this need to come out into a
COPYRIGHT file I can certainly do this.
I have only recently added version control to the project. I intend to
maintain a changelog for all future releases.
> Documentation in /usr/lib/foo?
Sorry? I don't understand what documentation you mean. The .ps file _is_
the resource.
And actually I fail to see
> what the benefit is of having a small postscript document showing me
> something about barcodes as a debian package? Or am I missing
> something? The package I just took a quick view at just contains a
> postscript file, nothing more.
I think that you have misunderstood what you are looking at... forgive me
if I wrong.
If you open the .ps file in a text editor you will find that it is in fact a
PostScript resource file with commented delimiters that are used by many
front end-applications to extract the relevant PostScript procedures
required to produce different symbologies within a particular document. The
sample invokations at the end of the file are usually parsed out of the file
by the calling application, but are left in the resource file since they
provide a simple demonstration of the code's capabilities.
There are a number of high-level APIs for this code that are currently in
production including Java, PERL and Ruby. Also the resource is used by the
pst-barcode LaTeX package that is part of PSTricks and the web-based demo at
http://www.raise-the-bar.co.uk/demo.
> Did you read the New Maintainers Guide, yet? It's available at
> http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide. Are you aware of the
> debian-mentors list at http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/?
Thanks. I'll take a look at both of these.
I the light of this information can you see other problems with the deb
package, apart from missing copyright and changelog files.
Kind regards,
Tez
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| Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| Terry Burton wrote:
> PostScript is an interpretted language, so I fail to understand what you
> mean by source packages in this context.
That word is part of the Debian jargon. You need to learn the
essentials of that jargon before you can effectively package anything
for Debian. The main source for this is the Debian Policy manual, which
you should read in its entirety (not skipping things that on the surface
look irrelevant).
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
> Copyright is included in the resource file. If this need to come out
> into a COPYRIGHT file I can certainly do this.
More of the same.
> There are a number of high-level APIs for this code that are currently
> in production including Java, PERL and Ruby. Also the resource is used
> by the pst-barcode LaTeX package that is part of PSTricks and the
> web-based demo at http://www.raise-the-bar.co.uk/demo.
Your package should refer to those, then.
--
Antti-Juhani
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| Ben Armstrong 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 16:37 +0100, Terry Burton wrote:
> I appreciate your efford, but please let me tell you, that it
> is
> a) highly uncommon to ask for a package sponsor without an url
> to the
> source packages.
>
> PostScript is an interpretted language, so I fail to understand what
> you mean by source packages in this context.
Source package != source code. All binary (.deb) packages *must* have a
source package (.tar.gz, .diff.gz, .dsc) even if they only contain
interpreted files.
Go read the doc that was recommended, and I think you'll understand.
Once you have gained a basic grasp of Debian packaging from reading
these docs, and have applied any corrections you feel are necessary from
your reading of the doc, you'll find it much easier to find someone to
sponsor your package.
Ben
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| |
| Henning Makholm 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| Scripsit Alexander Schmehl <alexander@schmehl.info>
> And actually I fail to see what the benefit is of having a small
> postscript document showing me something about barcodes as a debian
> package? Or am I missing something? The package I just took a
> quick view at just contains a postscript file, nothing more.
As far as understood the poster, the ps file contains a generic
Postscript library for drawing barcodes.
Unfortunately, in addition to the library, the file also contains a
page description for a test/demo page. This makes it unreasonably
difficult for generators of postscript to just include it in their
prologue, because they would need ad hoc code to cut away the test
page.
I can see some use for a common Postscript library *in principle*. It
*might* be more straightforward to use in some applications than
running barcode (q.v.) and processing the resulting EPS file. However,
I am not convinced that it should be packaged separately until we have
applications that actually do something useful with the library.
--
Henning Makholm "I tried whacking myself repeatedly
with the cluebat. Unfortunately, it was
not as effective as whacking someone else."
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| Joe Smith 2005-08-10, 5:55 pm |
| Basically this is a postscript file that is used more or less as a shared
library. It is debians policy to have shared libraies used by more thasn one
debian program to be seperated out into its own package, and linked against.
That is the goal of this. Terry is mainly asking if packaging this as such
makes sense. If so does the packaging look reasonable?
If it is then terry Should ITP this and continue as though it were a normal
package. Once accepted, Bugs (probably RC?) should be filed agaimnst the
packages that currently embed this 'library' to use the external form. This
does indeed belong in debian mentors, to which this has been cross-posted
(gamne). Please follow up in -mentors. (I cannot set a followup-to header
with OE via Gmane.)
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