Re: Why Vcs-* fields are not at least recommended ?
On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 12:49:11PM +0200, Ulrike Uhlig wrote:
> Hi Alexis,
>
> On 18.08.20 23:10, Alexis Murzeau wrote:
>
> > I'm wondering why Vcs-* fields in debian/control (Vcs-Browser and/or Vcs-<type>)
> > are not recommended (or maybe even strongly recommended) ? (I mean here that I think
> > having Vcs-* fields should be recommended for active packages)
>
> > There is no lintian tag for missing Vcs-* fields (not even a low severity one,
> > but I don't know if it's because of lack of interest or because of the policy).
>
> If one uses lintian in its pedantic mode, and a package is
> co-maintained, i.e. has a Maintainer and Uploader field, then lintian
> does recommend using a VCS:
> https://lintian.debian.org/tags/co-maintained-package-with-no-vcs-fields.html
>
> I agree that it might be useful to extend this tag to non co-maintained
> packages as well, potentially at least in pedantic mode.
>
> > Maybe the fact that we still have the package' source tarballs for each
> > released version is enough, but this loose the VCS history and ongoing work in
> > case someone else wants to contribute too.
>
> I fully agree with you here.
>
> For non actively maintained packages on could check them into Git
> oneself and then start a history from there, and potentially update the
> package.
>
I have had good results with snapshot.debian.org. On a few occasions,
simply downloading each successive version from snapshot.debian.org and
then using something like 'gbp import-dscs *.dsc' gives more than
sufficient version history. Granted, that has limitations, but it is
available right now.
Regards,
-Roberto
--
Roberto C. Sánchez
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