Subject: Re: cleanest way to maintain 'my hacks on packages' in pkgsrc
To: George Michaelson <ggm@apnic.net>
From: Steven M. Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
List: pkgsrc-users
Date: 05/15/2007 23:04:55
On Wed, 16 May 2007 10:34:23 +1000
George Michaelson <ggm@apnic.net> wrote:

> 
> I love igal. its in wip/igal. But, I want to hack on it, to make the
> installed template be "my" template, and change some icon behaviours.
> 
> Its already frozen code (I asked the author, no dev since 2003)
> 
> Its already accreted some useful hacks in patches/
> 
> forking can be evil, but driving "my" hacks into patches/ is really
> overkill.
> 
> So, do we have a generalized model of how to make a mini-hack pkg
> which:
> 
> 	1) depends on the base pkg and/or CONFLICTS with it somehow
> 		depending on what makes sense
> 
> 	2) overloads it with localized patches I own
> 
> 	3) could be shared via wip or other pkgsrc if useful
> 
> I'm thinking a pkgsrc/localhacks/<thing> hierarchy which is in
> the .cvsignore, so it doesn't freak my updates.
> 
> What do other people do?
> 
For the few things I want custom tweaks to, I export
LOCALPATCHES=/home/smb/localpatches -- under it, I have per-package
(i.e., two-level) directories containing patch files.




		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb