get-orig-source: possible MBF

[Jakub Wilk <ubanus@users.sf.net>]

I performed an experiment, in which I tried to check if source packages 
are providing get-orig-source targets that comply with the Debian 
Policy. Let me quote:

| `get-orig-source' (optional)
|      This target fetches the most recent version of the original
|      source package from a canonical archive site (via FTP or WWW, for
|      example), does any necessary rearrangement to turn it into the
|      original source tar file format described below, and leaves it in
|      the current directory.
| 
|      This target may be invoked in any directory, and should take care
|      to clean up any temporary files it may have left.
| 
|      This target is optional, but providing it if possible is a good
|      idea.

Note that there is a disagreement what does "the most recent version" 
mean [1]. Therefore, I didn't actually check if get-orig-source 
downloads the correct version, but merely if it downloads tarballs into 
the current directory.

Here are preliminary results:

a) 12424 packages didn't have g-o-s targets;

b) 928 packages had g-o-s targets and passed all my tests;

c) 15 packages call interactive programs (like lynx);

d) 21 packages unnecessarily call dh_testroot; accidentally, all of 
these packages put tarballs in a wrong directory;

e) 327 packages put .orig.tar.gz in the ../tarballs/ directory;

f) 368 packages use uscan without --destdir (or even with
"--destdir ../") [2];

g) 100 packages (+ many more of the above categories) try to access 
files in ./debian/ directory, and thus fail when g-o-s is run in a 
different than usual directory; this includes packages using uscan with 
"--destdir ." [2];

h) I need to further investigate 422 more packages (out of which at 
least 134 create .orig.tar.gz in a wrong directory).


If there is consensus, I'll post dd-lists for some of the above 
categories (except a, b and h, of course) and start mass bug-filling 
soon.


[1] http://bugs.debian.org/466550

[2] For those who want to improve their g-o-s targets, here's a makefile 
fragment that appears to work:

MAKEFILE = $(firstword $(MAKEFILE_LIST))
SOURCE_DIR = $(dir $(MAKEFILE))/..

.PHONY: get-orig-source
get-orig-source:
	cd $(SOURCE_DIR) && \
	uscan --rename --force-download --destdir $(CURDIR) <your-favorite-uscan-options>


--
Jakub Wilk