Debian vs. Ubuntu source control file

[Xavier Roche <roche@httrack.com>]

[ Don't hesitate to redirect me to an already discussed 
solution/thread/FAQ/anything if necessary, but I didn't find anything 
related in recent (months) debian-devel. ]

Hi folks (and happy new year to all DD),

A minor issue (reported by Nick Ellery) with debian vs. ubuntu package 
is that the two package namespaces are not necessarily identical. An 
example is my httrack package, which on Ubuntu depends alternatively on 
abrowser, which is NOT in debian.

See BUG 530031 :
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=530031>

I could depend on abrowser on Debian, but the package doesn't exist, and 
lintian may be a bit annoyed. Besides, we may package in the future 
something called abrowser, which wouldn't be the same package (is that 
possible ? do we enforce "two different packages on debian/ubuntu should 
not have the same name" -- sorry if I am beating a dead horse)

This is the only reason why a patch is needed for all releases on 
ubuntu. The patch (<http://patches.ubuntu.com/h/httrack/>) is basically 
a one-liner in the control file (plus changelog and friends):

-Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | mozilla-firefox | www-browser
+Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | abrowser | mozilla-firefox | www-browser

What do you, folks, think of this case ?

(1) Not a very common case, which can be left as is (ie. patch all 
further control files)

(2) We may want to have a namespaced control fields, such as:

Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | mozilla-firefox | www-browser
Ubuntu:Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | abrowser | mozilla-firefox | www-browser

-and/or-

Debian:Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | mozilla-firefox | www-browser
Ubuntu:Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | abrowser | mozilla-firefox | www-browser

We could namespace all possible fields in the control file, introducing 
ubuntu-specific fields that would be ignored by the debian side.

(3) Namespace specific packages ?

Ubuntu:Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, webhttrack-common, iceape-browser | 
iceweasel | mozilla | firefox | ubuntu:abrowser | mozilla-firefox | 
www-browser

(the dependency checker on our side would then ignore all non-debian 
namespaces)

(4) Ubuntu-specific optional control file ?

ie. an optional ubuntu/control file

(5) Something totally obvious I did not notice yet


Regards,
Xavier