Re: Mangling other people's code

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

Guy Maor wrote:
> No for inheritors, yes for NMUs.  If a package is given away, the new
> maintainer should be free to reorganize the package how they see fit.
> People who upload NMUs shouldn't be making gratuitous changes though.

I agree with this.  It is already in the Developers' Reference,
section 4.4, Interim Releases:

     Maintainers other than the usual package maintainer should make as few
     changes to the package as possible, and they should always send a
     unified context diff (`diff -u') detailing their changes to the bug
     tracking system properly flagged with the correct package so that the
     usual maintainer is kept aware of the situation.

Also, Ian is mistaken about the case.  The changelog shows that the
changes in question were made in dpkg 1.4.0.9 by Klee Dienes.  This
was not a non-maintainer upload; Klee is co-maintainer of dpkg.

Richard Braakman