Re: Bug#886219: lintian should be less pedantic about latest policy version

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Mattia Rizzolo writes ("Re: Bug#886219: lintian should be less pedantic about latest policy version"):
> Currently there are two related tags:
> * https://lintian.debian.org/tags/out-of-date-standards-version.html
>   which is reported when an upload is done and the date of the
>   changelog is older than the date of a policy release newer than what
>   is in Std-Ver. (I.e. a package doesn't get this if no uploads are
>   done, but it assumes that when somebody updates a package the
>   maintainer checks whether it is compliant to the very last Policy
>   update, which IMHO it is totally reasonable…?)

I'm afraid I disagree.  I think it is not reasonable to expect a
maintainer to always double-check for the latest policy updates on
every upload.  Even for packages I care a lot about I check for policy
updates on each package only once or twice per Debian release.

> If you update your package you should spend your time checking it is
> still Policy compliant (how would you know it is otherwise without
> checking?!),

I think a maintainer can safely rely on the rest of the Debian project
not declaring your package buggy enough that you definitely need to do
something about it right now.  Unless one hears to the contrary some
other way, of course.

Ian.