Re: changes file format

[Ian Murdock <imurdock@debian.org>]

   Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 20:36:23 -0700 (PDT)
   From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>

   I'd intended to drop this topic, but I'll belabor one point here.
   If package announcements are uploaded to debian.org for machine
   parsing and debian-changes announcements are machine-generated from
   there, The mechanized debian-changes announcement generator has a
   lot of control over the aesthetics of the announcement format which
   is presented to humans for reading.

This is a bad idea.

I don't think we should mandate that a script exist somewhere to parse
the machine-readable format and generate a human-readable format from
it, when we could just as easily have a format that is both human- and
machine-readable and that does not require this extra step.

We *must*, however, have a script that maintainers can use to generate
announcements.  dchanges could be adapted to generate a human-readable
format instead of the currently-used format.  At the moment, the format
it uses appears to contain all of the right information, but it doesn't
arrange it in a manner that is easily readable by humans.

And while I do agree that it would be a good idea for the archive
maintainer (me) to moderate debian-changes to prevent announcements
from being distributed before the announced package is moved into
public view, I must urge restraint in automating the process.  All
packages should be inspected and moved into the distribution by a
human.  I am strongly of that opinion.