Not clear on Github how to get libmspack vs cabextract releases

[kyz]

Not clear on Github how to get libmspack vs cabextract releases

[kyz]

This is odd. Where did you get the tarball?

The current version of cabextract is 1.9.1. This is libmspack being built, not cabextract. The current version of libmspack is 0.10.1alpha. There is no such thing as libmspack 1.9.1.

This error was present in libmspack 0.10alpha, but fixed in libmspack 0.10.1alpha (see commit 817f2a2)

Please try using the latest version of libmspack, e.g. https://www.cabextract.org.uk/libmspack/libmspack-0.10.1alpha.tar.gz

[kloczek]

As you see keeping two projects in the same tree causes only confusion and additionally (already which I've already wrote) packing issue.
Tarball is on this repository release page https://github.com/kyz/libmspack/releases

[kyz]

Github's auto-generated tarballs aren't releases and I don't support them.

I don't know how accurate this is, but would you say you found this software on Github, and expected the releases to be made on Github?

Perhaps a top-level README, written for Github users, explaining that the releases are on https://www.cabextract.org.uk/, would help.

Please note the full labels on the release tags:

• cabextract 1.9.1
• libmspack 0.10.1alpha

libmspack compiles correctly, if you use the libmspack 0.10.1alpha tag.

[kyz]

I've added a top-level README in the repository in order to make it easier for people to do the right thing: get cabextract and libmspack releases from https://www.cabextract.org.uk/

I'm not going to split cabextract and libmspack into separate repositories in order to make it easier to do the wrong thing (which is using the auto-generated tarballs from Github; these aren't releases)

[kloczek]

Really .. keeping two project in on repo is not how it should be done.
Tagging will be across each of those two parts inside.
Best would be just clone, move directories content up and put cabextract and libmspack in own repositories.
Just look around. No one is using git like you are using it it.

[kloczek]

Other thing is that libmspack is failing in distcheck target.

[kyz]

Thank you for the suggestion, but I'm going to keep the existing release process and repository layout.

I haven't previously had anyone have trouble finding the right tag to go with a release, and I don't want any packaging systems to use Github or the git tags as a source for anything. Packaging systems should only use releases on https://www.cabextract.org.uk/. See cabextract.spec.in. If you want to contribute a libmspack.spec.in that sources from https://www.cabextract.org.uk/, I would welcome that.

[kyz]

I've just checked ./configure && make distcheck works with libmspack 0.10.1alpha release on Ubuntu 18.04 x86_64. Could you post the failure? If you're using the repository directly (or a tarball of it), what did you run other than ./configure && make distcheck?

[kloczek]

Tarball taken from github release tab.

[kyz]

Did you run anything else? As there's no ./configure in the repository, you must have run at least autogen.sh (or equivalent). What's the full sequence of commands and their output?

[kloczek]

autoreconf -fiv; ./configure; make distcheck

[kyz]

Please post the output too.

To see if I could replicate your issue, I downloaded the Github tarball of libmspack v0.10.1alpha, and ran the commands above (although please note there is an autogen.sh and rebuild.sh to accomplish the same). There are no problems with make distcheck on Ubuntu 18.04

$ wget -q https://github.com/kyz/libmspack/archive/v0.10.1alpha.tar.gz
$ tar xf v0.10.1alpha.tar.gz 
$ cd libmspack-0.10.1alpha/libmspack
$ autoreconf -fiv; ./configure; make distcheck

I get the sinking feeling that the output will be the same as listed at the start of this issue, which is already diagnosed and solved. You tried to use the Github releases page instead of the actual releases page. The Github page does not show the single line of description on each tag, so you see "v1.9.1" and "v0.10.1alpha", not "cabextract v1.9.1" and "libmspack v0.10.1alpha" which would give you an immediate clue as to which one you want, and you chose the wrong tag and got the libmspack v0.10alpha release, which is acknowledged broken and the fix is to use the latest release, v0.10.1alpha.

If you are packaging libmspack, especially if you're trying to write an RPM spec script or similar, use the official release tarball at https://www.cabextract.org.uk/libmspack/libmspack-VERSION.tar.gz, do not homebrew your own release from repository tarballs and running distcheck.

[kloczek]

Other issue is with versioning. If current version is 0.10.1alpha and ten it will be 0.10.1 it makes problem on packaging because 0.10.1alpha is greater than 0.10.1. I would suggest next time use convention like 0.9.1.99 and then 1.10.1.
Do you have any plans to make regular release soon?

[micahsnyder]

@kloczek it makes no sense to use a convention like 0.9.1.99 for an alpha or beta release in so far as a software developer can make no guarantee there wouldn't be a second or third alpha, beta, or release candidate prior to a stable release. It is common for pre-release software versions to have "alpha", "beta", "beta2", "rc", "rc2", etc suffixes to differentiate them.

Ordinarily, these pre-release versions wouldn't be packaged by a package manager. For libmspack however, @kyz has chosen to use the "alpha" suffix for all official releases to date. Unless he decides to stop using the "alpha" suffix, I imagine it shouldn't be a problem to just accept it as a permanent part of the name in packaging. For your own packaging of libmspack, you could of course choose to drop the "alpha" suffix if you choose. libmspack seems stable to me so I reckon it doesn't really matter if it has the suffix.

[kyz]

From https://www.cabextract.org.uk/libmspack/

The current "alpha" status of the library is due to feature incompleteness, not lack of robustness.

Once libmspack implements a few more compressors / decompressors, it will stop being alpha and will move straight to version 1.0

[kloczek]

Once libmspack implements a few more compressors / decompressors, it will stop being alpha and will move straight to version 1.0

Any update? 🤔

[kyz]

There is a release of libmspack coming soon, it will be 0.11alpha