Too much disruptive NMUs

[Ana Guerrero <ana@debian.org>]

Hi,

It is good to care for packages from people who are currently too busy and
making NMUs to fix critical/very important bugs. However, lately I have been
seeing a lot of NMUs that are being very disruptive [0], you have a couple of
examples below [1]. (This is not against Jari or Nobihuro, they are just the 
latest examples I have seen today).

I know this is done with the best intentions but if you think the package 
is in bad shape or neglected by the maintainer then it might better write 
to mia@, debian-qa@ or open a bug asking whether the package should be 
orphaned (or even removed). Both examples below are candidates to be orphaned.

If you think this kind of changes are good, please start a discussion about
changing this in the developers-reference.

Ana


[0] http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/pkgs.html#nmu

[1] 

This one is not even fixing a serious bug:

Format: 1.8
Date: Tue, 04 May 2010 21:39:32 +0300
Source: xwrits
Binary: xwrits
Architecture: source i386
Version: 2.21-6.1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Helen Faulkner <helen@debian.org>
Changed-By: Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net>
Description: 
 xwrits     - reminds you to take a break from typing
Closes: 579038
Changes: 
 xwrits (2.21-6.1) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   [ Jari Aalto ]
   * Non-maintainer upload.
     - Move to packaging format "3.0 (quilt)".
   * debian/clean
     - Mew file.
   * debian/compat
     - New file.
   * debian/control
     - (Build-Depends): update obsolete xutils to xutils-dev.
       (important; Closes: #579038). Remove *-1 version suffix
       from texinfo dependency. Update to debhelper 7.1.
     - (Depends): add ${misc:Depends}.
     - (Homepage): New field.
     - (Standards-Version): update to 3.8.4.
   * debian/copyright
     - Update layout and point to GPL-2.
   * debian/rules
     - Delete EOL whitespaces.
     - (DH_COMPAT): Remove.
     - (install): Update dh_clean to dh_prep.
     - (clean): Fix lintian debian-rules-ignores-make-clean-error.
   * debian/source/format
     - New file.
   * debian/watch
     - New file.
   * xwrits.1
     - Fix hyphens.

-----------

Format: 1.8
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 11:28:10 +0900
Source: a2ps
Binary: a2ps
Architecture: source i386
Version: 1:4.14-1.1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Masayuki Hatta (mhatta) <mhatta@debian.org>
Changed-By: Nobuhiro Iwamatsu <iwamatsu@debian.org>
Description: 
 a2ps       - GNU a2ps - 'Anything to PostScript' converter and pretty-printer
Closes: 487183 507293 547907 557775 571571
Changes: 
 a2ps (1:4.14-1.1) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   * Non-maintainer upload.
   * Update debian/control.
      - Bump Standards-Version to 3.8.4
      - Update Build-Depends on debhelper 7
      - Update Depends on emacs23 instead of emacs22. (Closes: #571571)
    * Add debian/source/format.
      Set source format to "1.0".
    * Update debian/compat to 7
    * Update debian/copyright
      - Add year of Copyright.
      - Fix copyright-without-copyright-notice lintian warning.
    * Update debian/rules
      - Remove -k from dh_clean
      - Remove usr/share/info/dir after installing.
    * Add new patches.
      - Fix patch-system-but-direct-changes-in-diff
        06_encoding_texi.dpatch, 07_a2ps_info.dpatch
      - Fix manpage-has-errors-from-man.
        08_man.dpatch
    * Update debian/emacsen-startup.
      (Closes: #557775, #507293, #547907, #487183)