On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 08:51:04AM +0200, Ketil Malde wrote:
What is the current recommended way to build debian packages? I notice there's a step-by-step description at
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Creating_Debian_packages_from_Cabal_packa...
That's the way I recommend.
Any reason the manual steps here aren't automated?
There's not much benefit from automating them (although if someone did so, with a nice way to edit the description etc, then it would be handy). The vast majority of the time in creating Debian packages is: Collecting the copyright info to put in debian/copyright. In theory this is just taking the "copyright" field from the cabal file, but it's often not that simple, e.g. the latest (1.4.2) X11 package claims: 1999-2003, Alastair Reid 2003-2007, libraries@haskell.org but when packaging it I found: 1997-2003, Alastair Reid 2006, Frederik Eaton 2007, Spencer Janssen 2003-2007, libraries@haskell.org in the sources, plus the copyright for the configure script. Checking the Cabal package description is suitable, or writing a suitable description. Testing the package. Thanks Ian, who has no idea what "libraries@haskell.org" claiming copyright actually means, if anything