automated updates of debian/changelog considered harmful

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

Ok, this is already the second time I have to report a bug like this,
so I will warn everybody before I find more of them.

There seems to be a bunch of packages who try to update the changelog
in this way:

           dch -a -p "GNU config automated update: config.sub\
             ($$OLDDATESUB to $$NEWDATESUB), config.guess\
             ($$OLDDATEGUESS to $$NEWDATEGUESS)" ;\

whenever they use new config.guess and config.sub files from the
autotools-dev package.

PLEASE DON'T DO THAT. Don't change the changelog in debian/rules.

Adding changes would be ok for an upload which includes source
(i.e., .dsc and .diff), but it's simply the *wrong* thing to do when
an upload does not include a new source (for example, the changelog
update will also happen on builds made by an autobuilder).

In fact, when an autobuilder builds the package, the .changes file is
wrong, as it is like this:

Maintainer: The usual maintainer <maintainer@d.o>
Changed-By: root <root@build.machine>

instead of this:

Maintainer: Build Daemon <build@daemon>
Changed-By: The usual maintainer <maintainer@d.o>


[ If you do not believe this, visit buildd.debian.org and see the
  build logs for the lifelines package, for example ].


The fact that the package uses more recent config.* files is simply
*not* such a relevant change to be documented, as the package already
has autotools-dev in the build-depends and it's already known that the
package will always use the most recent config.* files.

Thanks.