Bug#847681: packaging repository and sid diverging? Various fixes needed.

[Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro>]

On 13/12/16 22:46, Andreas Henriksson wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 08:55:34PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> Thanks for providing this feedback
>>
>> I've done the following:
>> - forked the upstream repository
>> - created a debian/sid branch
>> - copied debian/* from jessie into that branch and committed
>> - copied debian/* from sid into that branch and committed
> [...]
> 
> Haven't checked the actual repo, but this sounds horrible to me.
> 

It is not universally bad

The benefit is that it makes it easier for integrating with upstream
work and quickly testing code that upstream hasn't tagged or released, e.g.


git checkout master     (upstream's master)
git pull                (get latest unreleased stuff)

git checkout -b debian/test-latest-2016-12-14 debian/sid
git merge master
vi debian/changelog
git add debian/changelog && git commit -m 'Test build 2016-12-14'

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -i.* -b -us -uc


When I am working in my own projects where I am upstream I find it very
convenient to be able to rapidly build and test packages like that
before tagging my upstream releases.  My goal there is to ensure every
release tarball can work on Debian without patching.

I agree the loss of Debian packaging history is a concern, that is one
reason I didn't clobber the existing repository and I wrote that we can
blow this away if there isn't consensus about it.

Regards,

Daniel