Russ Allbery writes ("Re: [RFC] Proposal for new source format"): > Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes: > > Of course this means that the resulting source packages are not the "3.0 > > (quilt)" patch queue source packages that many people (even some people > > who like git) say is important to them. > > > A key design goal for dgit and my tag2upload proposal, is that (when > > used in the most usual way) it produces nice source packages like > > everyone is used to. > > My recollection is that you found 3.0 (quilt) packages had a lot of edge > cases and strange interactions with Git that you've had to work around.
Oh certainly. I don't like them very much. However, lots of people have, over a long period, told me that they like them and that their features are valuable to them. This comes up over and over again in threads like this one. > I think there may be some deep conflicts here between a source package > that is inherently a useful basis for work and modification (one of the > design goals of 3.0 (quilt), and also one of the things those of us who > like Git source packages have always wanted) and a source package that is > easy to reproducibly generate and contains as little complexity as > possible so that the archive software doesn't need to use any complex > tools. My response to this situation has been to solve it with superior technology. dgit is a reliable bidirectional (mostly [1]) converter between .dscs including `3.0 (quilt)' and useful[1] git branches. That is its core purpose. I have certainly encountered a large number of anomalies and difficulties but I have overcome them and the result is a system where everyone gets to keep what they value. I took this approach because I wanted to make new stuff that people would *enjoy more than the old stuff* and *want to use*. Software whose output everyone would like. [1] If to you `useful' means patches-unapplied or bare Debian, then the dgit ecosystem does not yet have a converter from dsc to your git branch. Ian. -- Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own. If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.