Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source [LWN.net]

Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

Posted Feb 28, 2011 21:19 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
In reply to: Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source by jspaleta
Parent article: Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

This was proposed for the Debian source format too, and I think was implemented.

In their FAQ, they have a Q/A pair about archive bloat.

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Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

Posted Feb 28, 2011 21:23 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (1 responses)

ah thanks. I'll make it a point to watch how Debian maintainers organically start switching over to this format for source requirements.

-jef

Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

Posted Feb 28, 2011 21:39 UTC (Mon) by pkern (subscriber, #32883) [Link]

One major point that was raised against it was the inability to check if the git tree is distributable. When a package enters Debian the source tarball does get checked if the license allows them to distribute it (and for main if it complies to the DFSG). That's currently file-based. Now, with bad luck, you could have non-compliant files buried deep in the git tree; with potentially undistributable files among them, that have since been stripped from the exported tarball. Getting a solution to this problem would help the format's adoption greatly.