Re: revise Package Contributor's Guide?

[Jon TURNEY <jon dot turney at dronecode dot org dot uk>]

On 17/06/2013 10:07, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Jun 16 00:46, Andrew Schulman wrote:
> > Since I first started building packages for Cygwin 8 or 10 years ago, several
> > things have changed for package maintainers, especially recently:
> >
> > (1) Most maintainers will now be building 32- and 64-bit versions of their
> > packages.
> >
> > (2) Probably no one is using a generic build script any more.
> >
> > (3) I believe that some of the work we used to have to do, such as creating
> > Cygwin-specific README files, isn't needed any more.
> >
> > (4) Recent changes in cygport allow maintainers to do away with even more of the
> > manual work they used to do, such as creating pre- and postinstall scripts and
> > setup.hint files.

> > Unfortunately, none of this information has made it into the Package
> > Contributor's Guide (http://cygwin.com/setup.html).  I think the guide has
> > fallen significantly out of date with how packages are being built now.
> >
> > For myself, I need the Guide to be updated so I'll know what the best practices
> > are for building packages now.  I see references to the above points on
> > cygwin-apps, but I have the constant feeling that I've missed the original
> > discussion and don't know the best way to build packages any more.
> >
> > Would someone be willing to revise the Guide to reflect the above points?  I
> > could help, but I don't think I know enough.
> >
> > And:  Is there a consensus that the g-b-s method of building packages should be
> > retired?  The disadvantages of g-b-s are well known, and I can't think of any
> > advantages that it has now over cygport, but maybe someone can correct me.
>
> I'd be very happy as well, if somebody would update this page to make
> clear that cygport is the one and only method for new packages.  We
> should get rid of the old package methods, at least on this page.

Attached is a patch which moves the old method one and two to an archive 
page, and continues the boffo packaging example into the section for the 
cygport method.

Other stuff left to do:
- Change to link to the new upload process page
- Correct paths on the package server from release/ to <arch>/release
- Change the examples to use .xz compression

Attachment: archive_old_packaging_methods.patch
Description: Text document