Re: Ubuntu-to-Debian packaging
On Dec 1, 2007 4:34 PM, C.J. Adams-Collier <cjcollier@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 16:30 +0100, Patrick Schoenfeld wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 06:23:50PM -0400, Jose Luis Rivas Contreras wrote:
> > > You need a new changelog for Debian starting from scratch and you could
> > > adapt the copyright (if the license allow it) or just make one new.
> >
> > Why? Thats IMHO a very bad way to do it.
> >
> > 1) changelog is to track was has been done in the package since its
> > beginning. since it is orignating from an ubuntu package, why should its
> > history be dropped? That has several disadvantages, including that its
> > impossible to track any change that happened before the initial Debian
> > release. Very bad. Also its not fair to the Ubuntu maintainers that did
> > the initial and eventually biggest part of the work. You simply ignore
> > the fact that they did something in the history of the package.
> > Besides from beeing unfair it might be a license violation, depending on
> > how the ubuntu packaging has been licensed.
> >
> > 2) it is also not wise to start a new copyright file. Besides from the
> > fact that the Ubuntu maintainers might already have worked alot on it
> > and it would be a big waste of time, to just drop it and start from new,
> > you should honour their work beeing done and their packaging license.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Patrick
>
> This topic was recently discussed on #debian-devel, but in a slightly
> different context. I'd like to hear what Paul, Mirco and Cesare have to
> say on this subject. Adding to To: line.
>
>
I agree with Patrick on this.. From experience, it is not that hard to
merge packages from Debian to Ubuntu, and i'm sure it cant be much
harder to go the opposite way. It is usually best to keep the change
log, and add your own entry (as stated above). If you take a look at
the Ubuntu change log, it includes all of the Debian entries from
before (even those from recent merges), and it is simply a bad idea,
patching wise, to not include the old change log (because an
undocumented change can and probably will cause a problem in the
future). I am still unsure of the reason the change log would need to
be removed.
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