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+# Packaging
+
+We want to package Tahoe for people to download and use and we want to use 3rd-party libraries.  The following are our current desiderata:
+
+ * We can produce a Tahoe binary package for a given deployment target, ship that package to a user using that platform, they can install that package, and it will work. That is: user doesn't have to manually satisfy any dependencies.  The only deployment target that we currently support is Ubuntu Feisty or newer.
+
+For libraries that Tahoe uses, we have these desiderata:
+
+ * We use the source code as it is written by upstream. That is: no patching required.
+
+ * Use it as it is packaged by upstream. That is: we prefer to get a copy of the source code of the package as upstream prefers to distribute such source code, rather than by pulling from their revision control tool or so on.
+
+ * The user doesn't have to manually resolve any conflicts (this means that we either have to automatically use a 3rd-party library if it is already installed or else we have to automatically force Tahoe to use the copy that it came bundled with).
+
+ * Make it convenient for someone to use other versions of the packages that we use e.g. system-wide packages or newer or alternate versions, etc..