Re: pkglibdir vs. lib64

[Yavor Doganov]

Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>    A diligent distro package maintainer certainly reads the
>    Makefile.am, and also reviews the full diff between upstream
>    releases.
> 
> Very few packages do this,

I don't think that anyone can state with reasonable certainty how many
do or do not do this.  I do it for all packages I maintain, and I know
other maintainers who adhere to the same practice.  OTOH, there are
surely people who don't bother.

> and it is immensly unfeasible for them to do so.

It is, especially for large packages.  But those who are afraid of
wolves shouldn't walk in the woods.

> It is like asking a user to look through the diff before
> installing a new version of a program.

No, there's a HUGE difference.  What you do as a user concerns you and
only you.  What you do as a maintainer affects others.

As an upstream maintainer, you don't just collect and recklessly
commit patches, releasing the havoc afterwards, right?  You review
them carefully, you excercise human judgement to the best of your
knowledge and ability, and the release you make is something you could
wholeheartedly recommend to users.

Similarly, a distro package maintainer is responsible for many users
and it's simply not acceptable to maintain a package without a certain
degree of involvement and judgement.  That's why maintainers are
humans and not packaging bots (there are some who behave like bots,
perhaps).

But this is getting off-topic.  My point was that a comment in a
Makefile.am (as suggested by the OP) should be spotted by a *decent*
maintainer, as maintainers *usually* pay attention to changes,
especially changes in the build system.  (Mike is also right that
distro maintainers are well aware of this particular issue.)