Mail Archives: djgpp-workers/2000/12/10/02:52:23
On Sat, 9 Dec 2000, DJ Delorie wrote:
> > Now what I wanted to know is whether it is acceptable to base a DJGPP
> > package on development sources (i.e. on the latest CVS-based tree),
>
> Yes. As long as they're from CVS, they'll eventually become released
> sources. Note that this is a personal excemtion I make, and not
> normally allowed by the GPL.
?? Are you saying that GPL frowns on releases based on development
snapshots? Where does it say so? Whatever sources were used to build
the binaries, they would be available as part of the port release, so
where's the catch?
Personally, I don't like the current trend in many packages to let people
freely access the CVS and use that as an excuse for not having stable
releases. However, there's an opinion out there, frequently brought up by
the proponents of the free CVS access, that a project which doesn't allow
such an access is violating the GPL, or at least its spirit.
It sounds like you are saying the opposite.
> > is it acceptable to merge in unofficial patches (such as the
> > 'edit -c' patch that is used by CVSNT)?
>
> Since you're including full sources anyway, unofficial patches are
> allowed. Normally, though, they're discouraged as they make for
> maintenance headaches.
I agree. IMHO, you should only include such patches if they correct a
profound bug, and it would be nice to include the patch itself with the
source distribution, so that it would be possible to take it out (with
"patch -R") and resurrect the original version.
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