Bug#105535: debian-policy should not be concerned with the internal structure of a source package

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

Adam Heath wrote:
> C.4 Unpacking a Debian source package without dpkg-source
> 
>    dpkg-source -x is the recommended way to unpack a Debian source
>    package. However, if it is not available it is possible to unpack a
>    Debian source archive as follows:
>     1. Untar the tarfile, which will create a .orig directory.
>     2. Rename the .orig directory to package-version.
>     3. Create the subdirectory debian at the top of the source tree.
>     4. Apply the diff using patch -p0.
>     5. Untar the tarfile again if you want a copy of the original source
>        code alongside the Debianised version.
> 
>    It is not possible to generate a valid Debian source archive without
>    using dpkg-source. In particular, attempting to use diff directly to
>    generate the .diff.gz file will not work.
> --
> 
> Very many(most?) source packages do NOT unpack their .orig.tar.gz to
> foo-ver.orig/.  Also, the above paragraph does not consider debian-native
> packages.
> 
> This paragraph also does not allow the internal format of a src pkg to be
> changed, which would make a new format more difficult to work with.  I would
> prefer to see this section removed, tbh.

This section used to be part of the debian packaging manual. Having
documentation available to allow by-hand unpacking of a source package
is pretty important from a security and general utility point of view.
It does not, of course, belong in policy.

-- 
see shy jo