More about x-packages

[Donnie Berkholz]

On 02:19 Wed 19 Dec     , pcpa at mandriva.com.br wrote:
>   Now, about the system I am working on:
>   I am using a git mirror of freedesktop, where I use 3 main branches, and
> modules also have branches with the same name.
> mandriva         Code that should be ok to add to mainstream
> mandriva+custom  Work in progress patches, or things that are not
>                  considered mainstream quality, but fix some issue
>                  in the distro
> mandriva+gpl     The distinction is due to the fact that GPL code currently
>                  isn't accepted in main Xorg, and branch created to allow
>                  easier integration of such patches/mods, and still keep
>                  the repository in a format that allows easy pulling
>                  for other people that want to make sure only a permissive
>                  license is used.
>   Currently, I am experimenting with git-archive to generate a tarball,
> and git-format-patch to generate the patches. The benefit is that it can
> be automatized, and there is no need to store huge binary files, and only
> files under version control enter the tarball. The bad side is that it is
> something new, and you can find people that dislike it. I generate
> tarball/patches to submit to a ``standard rpm build system''.

In Gentoo, we use the upstream tarballs, verified by MD5/SHA1/etc, and 
add a set of patches, independently maintained in CVS. An improvement to 
our setup might store the patches with stgit or similar to ensure 
they're automatically ported across releases.

I'm not (yet) convinced that maintaining our own repos and generating 
our own tarballs would lower the maintenance burden, since the number of 
patches we have against modular X is dramatically lower than the number 
we had with the old monolithic X (~10 vs 100+). Furthermore, almost all 
our patches make it upstream each release so there is no porting between 
releases.

Thanks,
Donnie