Re: dpkg-source again broken wrt to 3.0 (quilt)???

["Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org>]

* Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> [120118 03:08]:
> On Mi, 18 Jan 2012, Jakub Wilk wrote:
> > Wait, are you patching files inside debian/? That won't fly.
>
> Umpf, and, is that so evil?

One of the problems "3.0 (quilt)" solves is upstream tarballs already
having a debian/ directory. By having the complete debian/ contents
in the .debian.tar.gz and the unpacking replacing any upstream debian
directory with those contents, the maintainer of the Debian package does
not have to care what upstream placed there[1] and any automated tool
looking for debian information (like copyright or changelog) can extract
this information in an easy way from a well specified location [2].

Once you start with the new contents of debian/, what is a patch of
those files supposed to do? Either it is already applied or the package
was not in proper state while building...

> Esp for a NMU this is *very* good
> as it allows to see what the changes of the NMU are ...
> 
> Not that I am patching debian/control or debina/rules ...

So you suggest that someone interested at what this NMU does needs to
compare the two debian/ directories (of the old and the new package)
for changes in control, rules and changelog but then read some other
changes of the same directory in the form of a patch places in the
same directory?

I'd say that is the exactly opposite of "allows to see what the changed
of the NMU are".

So to answer you question: Yes, it is that evil.


        Bernhard R. Link

[1] especially debhelper likes to behave differently if some file is
there or not, so left over files can have ugly consequences.
[2] the .orig.tar is hard to cope with, as it must allow pristine
upstream files which can have quite a variety and absurdity in them.
And having information split in the form of some content in the one file
and a diff in the other file is hard, too. (You either need to do a full
unpack or restrict to the case the information is either fully in the
one or in the other like e.g. reprepro and changestool do to get Section
and Priority information from a .dsc).