[liw] > > a) If there is a bug in the packaging, it can be fixed without > > uploading a new upstream source tarball. Assuming upstream version > > is 1.2, the first Debian version would be 1.2-1, and the fixed one > > would be 1.2-2. The .orig.tar.gz file would be the same for 1.2-1 > > and 1.2-2. [Panu Kalliokoski] > What benefit does this have in addition to bandwidth savings? Upstream release management machinery is often a bit complicated. Updating a web site, putting signed tarballs out, updating version numbers in public documents, maybe building binaries for selected platforms, pinging an -announce list. It's nice to avoid having to do that when there are no actual code changes, just a need for a Debian upload for one reason or another. This might be as trivial as adding a missing build dep to fix a FTBFS found by an autobuilder on an exotic platform, or even uploading to the testing-proposed-updates queue, having made no changes at all except to debian/changelog. Also, you don't really want to create extra work for other distributors like Mandriva, trying to track your package, by giving them frequent releases with mostly Debian-related changes in them. > > Thus, if the package gets uploaded to Debian, its Debian packaging > > will differ from upstreams, leading to confusing and .diff.gz files > > that are hard to read, since they don't contain all the Debian > > packaging. > > This only seems to apply to a situation where the upstream is not a > DD. However, I'm trying to get to be one. It is worth noting that Debian is not the only distribution that uses .dsc format. Lots of Debian derivatives do too. The same problem of two maintainers and one debian/ dir happens if your package is adopted by Kanotix or the DCC Alliance. Another related consideration, when you have two maintainers in the same debian/ dir: when dpkg-source creates a .diff.gz file, it ignores file deletions. This is a very useful feature, not a bug. But in this case it means that a downstream packager trying to create binaries for Kanotix will be unable to delete any of the files you've created in debian/ without something hackish like $(RM) in debian/rules.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature