Re: new fields in debian/control

[Itai Zukerman <zukerman@math-hat.com>]

> > That does not make sense to me. I think the program that reports bugs
> > against a package should know from the Origin how to do that so if we
> > change to another BTS we would only need to change that program. 
> 
> No, that's silly. That would mean all bugreporting tools would need
> a comprehensive list of all Origins out there, which is not reasonable.

Well, that's not necessarily true.  The Origin field could just
provide a *way* to get the bug-submission data you need.  I mean:

  Origin: Debian
  Origin-URL: http://www.debian.org/path/to/origin/data

Or, better yet:

  Origin: Debian
  Origin-URL: file:/etc/origin/Debian

if /etc/origin/Debian is in base (or have an appropriate

  Depends: origin-debian

otherwise).

We could also skip the URL and just do:

  Origin: Debian

and have a /etc/origin/Debian.  Then bug-reporting, etc. tools will
look in /etc/origin/Debian.  This would work for Corel, etc. (with
appropriate Depends lines, if necessary).

-itai

PS.  I have no real opinion on this matter; I'm just offering some
alternatives.  However, the "if you change one origin field you must
repackage everything" argument is pretty persuasive...