md5sums files (was Re: over 30000 bugs in our archive (!))

[Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>]

More problems I'm seeing as a view the lintian output -

The lack of an md5sums file is flagged as an error. However, I'm not aware
of any policy that says we need one. I personally like the md5sums files,
but I thought lintian was bound by policy, so why is it reporting this as a
bug?

Also, lintian files it as a bug if a conffile is not listed in the md5sums
file. Debhelper's dh_md5sums program, which makes md5sum files, excludes
conffiles from md5sum files on purpose, becuase that info is duplicated
elsewhere. So every debhelper package with a conffile gets a linitan error
message. 

We need to get a consensus on whether

1. md5sum files should be required by policy.
2. conffiles should be included in them.

(Moving this to debian-policy.)

-- 
see shy jo