Package: lintian
Version: 2.55.0
I am packaging a small program for which I am the upstream. It does
not make sense to use a complicated source format; 1.0 native is
perfect.
There is no such thing about "1.0 native". I'm sure you know that very well! ;)
What separates a "native" and "not native" in 1.0 is the presence of a .diff.gz file besides the upstream tarball, and afaik lintian checks that to decide on this.
E: chiark-tcl-applet source: malformed-debian-changelog-version 1.0-1~
(for native)
For the reasons above I disagree with calling this an error.
Previously it was a warning.
In my opinion your statements here doesn't make any sense: using a Debian revision when you are not relying on a single upstream tarball (i.e., non-native) really is going against the implied meaning of a Debian revision: something that is not supposed to change the upstream part.
If you want to separate the Debian and upstream parts please go and use a non-native source format, be it 1.0 or 3.0... saying that you want to use a native source format but still separate the upstream part it's just plain odd.