Packages based on CVS sources

[Hans de Goede]

Rex Dieter wrote:
> Wart wrote:
>> What is the policy for building packages for software that does not yet
>> have upstream source tarballs, but only maintains the software in CVS?
> 
> Makes it impossible to verify upstream sources for review.  For new 
> packages, definite bad idea.
> 

Erm,

Why does that make it hard to verify the sources? Download srpm, extract 
tar gz made by packager from CVS checkout. Do a cvs checkout yourself, 
next do a diff -ur --exclude=CVS, and there you have your comparision.

>> Am I allowed to pull the CVS sources and make my own source release?
>> Obviously, I would rather that this is all done upstream, but in case
>> they aren't responsive to such requests, what are my choices?
> 
> The only case I can think of that *may* be acceptable: to update an 
> existing package, with grave bug(s), but that should be a rare exception.
> 

Again, why? I have no personal interest in tclpro (I don't even know 
what it is). But I see no reason why a CVS checkout can't be build into 
a package, as long as you put the commands used todo the checkout in a 
comment in the spec file all is well.

Regards,

Hans