Packaging best practices: binary tools in mingw packages
Sandro Mani
manisandro at gmail.com
Fri May 10 14:15:57 UTC 2013
Hello,
In various review requests, the issue of what to do with binary tools
(i.e. exe files) has come up.
Currently, most packages seem to either
- Not ship any exes at all
- Ship them in the main package
Some packages ship a separate -tools subpackage.
It would be nice to standardize the practice, I think there are two
issues to discuss:
1. When should exes be shipped?
2. Should they be shipped in the main package, or in a subpackage (i.e.
-tools)?
Personally, my approach (but no such package has passed review so far)
has been to put any {mingw_bindir}/*.exe files which get built in a
-tools package, which the following rationale:
- Everything that is built and usable on win32 platforms is shipped
- Since tools may be useful to few people, putting them in a subpackage
allows a user to install them only if he/she needs them.
Comments/ideas?
Thanks
Sandro
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