Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge packaging

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 23 April 2005 at 11:23, Quentin Spencer wrote:
| 
| >| Notice also that the octave-gpc package in Debian is in the contrib
| >| section, not in main.
| >
| >I don't think that where the package is stored in the collection makes
| >any difference.
| >  
| >
| Back to my original question: does Debian distribute octave-forge 
| sources with the non-free stuff included, even though it doesn't get 
| packaged with Octave-forge?

We do, which is a possible a violation. Being lazy, I just made use of Paul's
magic 'ignore this directory' files to keep the corresponding code out of the
resulting binary, but never split the source tarball further than Paul did
upstream. 

A number of other Debian packages are in fact split into free and non-free
parts. Maybe it is time to do this for octave-forge now, and/or maybe it is
time to undertake the bigger reorg Paul sometimes mused about (copying, say,
the CRAN mechanism from R).  In any event, someone has got to step to the
plate and do the work.

Dirk

-- 
Better to have an approximate answer to the right question than a precise 
answer to the wrong question.  --  John Tukey as quoted by John Chambers