On Sat Jan 26 14:33, Colin Watson wrote: > One major reason many people object to yada is that it's very easy to > think you've fixed something but then discover that the packaging system > in use reverts or otherwise breaks your change, because the files you're > expected to edit are different from other Debian packages and the > differences are not obvious to those unfamiliar with the packaging > system. So, I would go a little further than my understanding of your > comment above and say that, given a reasonable level of general > knowledge about Debian packaging (which might include standard tools not > yet written) and the basic ability to fix a bug in the upstream source, > it should be straightforward to apply that fix to the Debian package and > produce a valid uploadable result. That is, even if a reasonable number > of Debian developers can figure it out, the system should also be > accessible to people with the relevant programming skills with basic > knowledge of Debian packaging.
I agree with this, but I don't think this should include using a VCS. As a counter-point to these suggestions here is what I would prefer. Note that I do regularly use DVCSs, and even store my Debian packaging in them, but I'd rather not expose that in the archive. I think we should standardise on some patch system, whether it be quilt or wig&pen or whatever, and people can write tools to take from their VCS of choice and produce a patches dir or take a patch and merge it back to their VCS. In fact, I believe git already has tools to do this. There should be debian/rules targets documented in policy for doing patch/unpatch and a simple method of adding a new patch. Ideally it should be as simple as throwing the output of diff -u around (which rules out dpatch). This means that those who want to use a DVCS can, and they just run git-export-dsc (or whatever) to create a source package with patches. When someone makes an NMU they will have posted a patch to the BTS which can be git-import-quilt (or whatever) into the repo. Those of us who just want to deal with patches dirs can do that too. In either case it should be very simple for another maintainer to patch the software and make a random upload. All you really need to be able to use is diff and the standard Debian packaging tools. dpkg-source could even have an option to test for patch: and apply the patches when it unpacks (I assume the wig&pen format will do essentially that) Matt -- Matthew Johnson
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