From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id XAA12316; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 23:16:32 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA12285 for ; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 23:16:31 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from gatekeeper.elmer.external.excelhustler.com (gatekeeper.excelhustler.com [68.99.114.105]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i3NLGTYM012100 for ; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 23:16:30 +0200 Received: from chatterbox.elmer.internal.excelhustler.com (unknown [192.168.0.12]) (using TLSv1 with cipher EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA (168/168 bits)) (Client CN "chatterbox.elmer.internal.excelhustler.com", Issuer "excelhustler.com" (not verified)) by gatekeeper.elmer.external.excelhustler.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4F006E013F; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:16:29 -0500 (CDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chatterbox.elmer.internal.excelhustler.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F76C5C006; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:16:29 -0500 (CDT) Received: from wile.internal.excelhustler.com (wile.internal.excelhustler.com [192.168.1.34]) by chatterbox.elmer.internal.excelhustler.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB0265C005; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:16:28 -0500 (CDT) Received: by wile.internal.excelhustler.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id E4CA2702A; Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:16:28 -0500 (CDT) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:16:28 -0500 From: John Goerzen To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] [ANN] The Missing Library Message-ID: <20040423211628.GE6783@excelhustler.com> References: <20040423185148.GA4434@excelhustler.com> <20040423204115.GA20626@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040423204115.GA20626@localhost> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i X-Scanned-By: clamscan at chatterbox.elmer.internal.excelhustler.com X-Miltered: at concorde by Joe's j-chkmail ("http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr")! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 2004:99 0400,:01 2004:99 passing:01 findlib:01 approval:99 bug:01 extlib:01 extlib:01 bug:01 foo:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 blah:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 04:41:15PM -0400, Eric C. Cooper wrote: > On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 01:51:48PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: > > [Debian users: I have uploaded it to sid, but will take a few days to > > appear.] > > I am a bit surprised by this. What is the process by which OCaml > packages are added to Debian? Are there any checks and balances? > Without in any way passing judgment on your particular effort, it > seems that a Debian developer with an OCaml agenda might have a > conflict of interest here, especially considering the scarce resource > that is the global OCaml module namespace. There are no more restrictions on OCaml packages in Debian than for any other language. The namespace issue is not really unique to OCaml; pretty much every other language execpt Java[1] would share it, too. Though the use of findlib packages helps somewhat. Part of what's good about Debian is that if a developer finds a package useful and is able to maintain it up to the standards set by Debian, there's very little reason to keep it out. The general process of adding a package to Debian involves approval by FTP masters, though one cannot expect them to know the namespace issues of every language. Having said that, there is an active community of OCaml maintainers in Debian that would pretty quickly notice any problem, and something going into sid doesn't automatically mean that it will ever be released. If something truly did conflict with another package, it'd likely get a bug report pretty quick. This remains a reason that the C Extlib has not been packaged, since it would conflict with the pure OCaml Extlib. I even e-mailed the author of the C package, and he refused to rename it. I could upload that, and the FTP masters might possibly even accept it, but it would be uninstallable on any system that uses the pure OCaml Extlib. That would be sure to generate some bug reports that could lead to the removal of the new package (and would certainly prevent it from being released). -- John [1] because everyone has to use com.foo.example.blah.blah ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners