Bug#658204: RFS: bibtool -- tool for BibTeX database manipulation

[Benoît Knecht <benoit.knecht@fsfe.org>]

Hi Jerome,

Jerome Benoit wrote:
> I am looking for a sponsor for my package "bibtool".
> 
>  * Package name    : bibtool
>    Version         : 2.53-1
>    Upstream Author : Gerd Neugebauer <gene@gerd-neugebauer.de>
>  * URL             : http://www.gerd-neugebauer.de/software/TeX/BibTool/index.en.html
>  * License         : GPL-1+
>    Section         : tex
> 
> It builds those binary packages:
> 
> bibtool    - tool for BibTeX database manipulation

I took a look at your package, here are a few comments:

  - debian/preinst has a comment saying it should be removed post-etch;
    now seems like it'd be a good time.

  - lintian gives a few warnings:

      P: bibtool source: source-contains-cvs-control-dir regex-0.12/doc/CVS
      P: bibtool source: source-contains-cvs-control-dir regex-0.12/CVS
      P: bibtool source: unversioned-copyright-format-uri http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5

    You may want to get in touch with upstream about that. Also, ideally
    regex shouldn't be embedded in the source.

  - I'm not sure why you're closing bugs #291134 and #187255 in the
    changelog; they're not fixed by this upload in particular, they're
    just not considered bugs. I think you should close these bugs
    manually and remove those two entries from the changelog.

    The second entry ("Features have been either"...) doesn't seem very
    useful; either give a brief summary of the changed features, or
    remove the entry entirely. The first entry ("New upstream version")
    essentially suggests that there are new or extended features, and
    users should know to check the upstream changelog already.
    (Actually, looking into it, there isn't even an entry for 2.53 in
    Changes.xml.)

  - In debian/copyright, you list yourself as the sole copyright holder
    for the files under debian/*, but you didn't do the packaging from
    scratch. What about the copyright of the previous maintainers?

  - In the bibtool(1) man page, the FILES section states "none" and the
    DIAGNOSTICS section "many"; I think both sections should simply be
    removed.
    
    In the SEE ALSO section, the BibTool Manual is referred to as
    bibtool.tex, but this file isn't installed on Debian; instead, it
    should refer to bibtool.pdf.gz installed in /usr/share/doc/bibtool.

    Also, in the .TH header in bibtool.1, something more useful than
    "local" (like a date for instance) should be used.

  - Have you forwarded your patches for inclusion upstream?

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

-- 
Benoît Knecht