Bug#460174: lintian: please suggest adding a get-orig-source target when applicable

[Cyril Brulebois <cyril.brulebois@enst-bretagne.fr>]

Package: lintian
Version: 1.23.42
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

that's a point unknown to or forgotten by some maintainers, when
repacking a tarball, one might[*] add a get-orig-source target to create
that tarball automatically.

Checking for the toplevel directory (inside the tarball) ending with
“.orig” might also be a nice lintian check to have (that's a “should”
from the developers reference).

About the “applicable” in the topic, I'm not really sure but as a wild
guess, assuming that any version number containing “dfsg” is a candidate
might do. (Commonly, .dfsg, +dfsg, ~dfsg are used.)

[*] The “might” is my reading of the policy (“optional”, “good idea”),
but maybe it would be helpful to remind people about this suggestion of
the policy?

Reading the devref again, it's is a “must” to provide detailed
information about the repack. I guess that encouraging people to script
their repack is the right thing to do.

At least the new upstream versions can be packaged more efficiently, and
package reviews can happen without having to store the tarball to an
intermediate location when the reviewer (eventually a sponsor) is
checking directly in $VCS the debian/ directory.

Thanks for considering yet another request…

Cheers,

-- 
Cyril Brulebois