Detailed changelog / Receipe

[Martin Schulze <joey@finlandia.Infodrom.North.DE>]

Hi,

I'm currently discussing this with Joey and Manoj but cannot enforce
it myself due to time constraints.

For a maintainer it is very difficult to follow policy if there is
no proper way to find out what needs to be done for a package that
was compliant to policy version 2.5.0.0 and should now use version
3.0.0.0.

What I'm missing is a detailed changelog / receipe to build, you
may call it whatever you like.

Joey pointed out that the debian-policy package installs the file
/usr/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist.text.gz .  Well, it's
a beginning.

However, it contains entries like:

    - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
      include the .la files in the -dev packages.

Err, cool.  Where do I put .la files?  In /etc?

    - Use logrotate to rotate log files

Quita cool also, how is it called?  Can I just do s/savelog/logrotate/g?

    - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
      System)

Way cool, what does this mean for my 20 X packages?

I guess you got the idea.  For a maintainer it is required at the
moment to re-grok our policy everytime a new document comes out.
This is time consuming and unaffordable for many of us (including
me, I'm sorry).

Thus we have to make it as easy as we can to get the changes into
the heads of maintainers.

Therefore I'd like to see a receipe that lists things which have
changed between two versions of policy.

For example:

    - Use logrotate to rotate log files.
      Turn savelog calls into logrotate -mode foo -user bar -group baz -olddir . -count n file [file [..]]

    - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
      include the .la files in the -dev packages.
      debhelper version x.yz will do this automatic when installing .a files
      .la files go into /etc/libs

Without this receipe we will have to face the situation that many
developers are clueless about current policy and are not able to
create policy compliant packages.

So I ask you, please, please, please include such receipes.

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
The only stupid question is the unasked one.

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