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Re: Summary: Git Packaging Round 2 [comments by 11/05/2019]



On Mon, 07 Oct 2019 21:22:46 -0400, Sam Hartman wrote:

> Ansgar argued that documenting the branch format is unnecessary given
> all the work you need to do to contribute to a package.  Several
> disagreed arguing that it helped them do their work.

I have an idea where Ansgar might be coming from; maybe I'm wrong but
in any case I have the following reservation or request for
clarification:
 
> Conclusiony Thing
> -----------------
[…]
> * If you are using debian group you should document your branch format.
>   Update to say that.

Ok, here it says that the branch format should be documented for the
Debian group (which reads like "not for teams if teams have different
policies / general documentation somewhere").
 
> General Recommendation
> ======================
> 
> This recommendation is intended for people who are simply looking for an
> approach that will work well with approaches others are using.  If you
> are packaging something in a large team, follow their existing
> practices.  
[…]
> You should document the branch format (such as patches unapplied (gbp
> pq)) that your repository uses.  Best practice for documenting this is
> still evolving.  The best current option is to document your branch
> format in debian/README.source.  Alternatively if you use `dgit
> push-source`, your source format is documented in maintainer tags.

Does this paragraph refer to repos in the Debian group or to all
repos, i.e. team-maintained ones?

The reason I'm asking is that I have very bad memories of the times
when Policy required to document the use of quilt in
debian/README.source (although quilt was very visible in both
debian/control and debian/rules at that time); and literally
thousands of boilerplate debian/README.source files were added; and
some years later removed after a Policy change. I'm pretty sure there
are still quite a few left in the archive.

So if this recommendation is targetted at repos in the Debian group
only (and teams can ignore it) I'm not enthusiastic by the prospect
of outdated documentation there, but well … If it's meant to apply to
team-maintained repos as well I'd consider this a mistake.

(Maybe a sentence like "The following paragraphs refer to the Debian
group, for teams see below under 'Recommendations for Teams'."
in/after the first paragraph would help to disambiguate the scope at
least.)
 

Cheers,
gregor

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