Bundled copies of the Porter stemmer library

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 10:05:12AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Florian Weimer <fweimer at redhat.com> writes:
> > I found some packages which embed copies of the Porter stemmer library
> > (PostgreSQL, tracker, pl, etc.).  Should I file bugs once I have the
> > full list, or should I apply for a bundling exception?
> 
Is this an actual library or just a C file distributed from a web page?

Filing bugs is probably needed as the packages will require modification
even if the FPC grants an exception.  However, it may be good to work out
some of the details beforehand.  If an exception were granted, we'd just
need to add virtual provides to the packages.  This is a lot easier than
modifying build scripts to build against the unbundled library.  Note
that the FPC will need many details in order to decide whether to grant an
exception or not.  So they *may* need to have information about each case of
bundling in each package anyway.  (Then again, there may be information that
applies to all of them... I need to write up a draft of our code snippet
exception criteria which this might (or might not) fall under if it's just
distributed as a source file on a website.)

> Well, as far as postgresql goes, you'll get zero interest from upstream
> in unbundling, because the Porter code isn't widely available as a
> prepackaged library.  (AFAIK anyway --- has that situation changed in
> the last few years?)
> 
The hard question is really whether the code is modified.  For
distributions, another dependent library is simply one more package to ship.

What usually happens in a simple case of bundling is:

1) We identify it.
2) We package the bundled library separately
3) We add a flag to the build scripts of the bundling packages to use a
   system library instead of the bundled library (and the cascade of places
   in the build scripts that that has to change).
4) We submit that upstream and upstream accepts it.
5) Other distributions realize that they can now build with a system version
   of this library and they start packaging the system library to accomodate
   that (this latter point works in the other direction as well... we
   sometimes get the work done by other distributions in this same manner).

There are many non-simple cases (usually revolving around the bundled
library being modified) and a few cases where upstream doesn't want our
work or the package maintainer in Fedora doesn't want to perform the work
but those are happily, few.

-Toshio
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