On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:34:00 -0400, Chris Knadle wrote: > For instance, say a potential maintainer picks up an old package to do an NMU > on, and updates the version of debhelper from v5 to v8, switches from 1.0 > format to 3.0 quilt format, and likewise has to make numerous other similar > tweaks both to the debian files and patching the upstream source. Are any of > these possibly considered part of packaging style in terms of this section of > the Dev Ref? IMO: yes, to all of these examples. As I understand it, NMUs should only do the minimal necessary changes needed to fix a bug (in order to make it easy for the maintainer to incorporate the diff). Changing patch systems, debhelper/cdbs/dh, source format etc. would indeed be sometimes easier for the NMUer, but they are usually not _necessary_ for solving a problem. This might lead to more work when preparing an NMU but that's not the main priority. (For totally outdated packages it might make more sense to think about getting them orphaned by the MIA team or discussing their removal.) And this is only 1) my personal understanding of 2) the current situation; I might be wrong, and the common interpretation might change :) In general, I agree that zack's wording _sounds_ more positive towards NMUs than the language in DevRef at the moment, and I wouldn't mind if you came up with improvements. Cheers, gregor -- .''`. Homepage: http://info.comodo.priv.at/ - OpenPGP key 0xBB3A68018649AA06 : :' : Debian GNU/Linux user, admin, and developer - http://www.debian.org/ `. `' Member of VIBE!AT & SPI, fellow of the Free Software Foundation Europe `-
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