Bug#566820: lintian: Warn about missing debian/source/format, advise switch to new 3.0 source formats
Package: lintian
Version: 2.3.1
Severity: wishlist
As part of the plan to have the new source formats as the default formats in
Debian I would like lintian to give a warning when debian/source/format
doesn't exist, it could be named "missing-debian-source-format".
I suggest this description:
---
With the introduction of new source formats, it's now recommended to
explicitly select the desired source format in debian/source/format.
If you don't have a good reason to stick with the old format,
you should switch to "3.0 (quilt)" (for packages with a separate
upstream tarball) or to "3.0 (native)" (for Debian native packages).
For more information about the new source formats, please see
dpkg-source(1) and http://wiki.debian.org/Projects/DebSrc3.0
If you plan to keep using the old format, you should still create
that file and put "1.0" in it. In that case, you are invited to get in
touch with debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org to discuss the (technical) reasons
why the new formats do not suit you.
---
I would also suggest using
Severity: normal
Certainty: certain
so that it appears as warning and all packages maintainers get to see it
if they don't have created that file.
We could also add a tag "using-old-source-format" that warns of specifying
1.0 in that file. Obviously this one should start among the "pedantic"
tags but its importance might be increased over time once we decide to
really deprecate the old format.
It might also be a good idea to have "unknown-source-format" when
debian/source/format contains something else than "1.0", "2.0", "3.0
(quilt)", "3.0 (native)", "3.0 (git)", "3.0 (bzr)". This one should result
in an error.
Thanks for your work on lintian!
-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (150, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii binutils 2.20-5 The GNU assembler, linker and bina
ii diffstat 1.47-1 produces graph of changes introduc
ii dpkg-dev 1.15.6 Debian package development tools
ii file 5.03-5 Determines file type using "magic"
ii gettext 0.17-8 GNU Internationalization utilities
ii intltool-debian 0.35.0+20060710.1 Help i18n of RFC822 compliant conf
ii libapt-pkg-perl 0.1.24 Perl interface to libapt-pkg
ii libclass-accessor-perl 0.34-1 Perl module that automatically gen
ii libipc-run-perl 0.84-1 Perl module for running processes
ii libparse-debianchangel 1.1.1-2 parse Debian changelogs and output
ii libtimedate-perl 1.2000-1 collection of modules to manipulat
ii liburi-perl 1.52-1 module to manipulate and access UR
ii man-db 2.5.6-5 on-line manual pager
ii perl [libdigest-sha-pe 5.10.1-9 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction
lintian recommends no packages.
Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn binutils-multiarch <none> (no description available)
ii libtext-template-perl 1.45-1 Text::Template perl module
ii man-db 2.5.6-5 on-line manual pager
-- no debconf information
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