Bug#96597: changing policy requirements for debian native packages to _MUST_

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

> > > Given this expectation, one of two things should be done; either
> > > policy should be changed to explicitly allow multiple changelogs for
> > > debian-native packages, or explicitly disallow more than 1.
> > 
> > "Given this expectation", sure, but I *don't* give that expectation.
> > If changelog.Debian.gz exists, that should be considered the Debian
> > changelog.  If it doesn't, then changelog.gz should be considered the
> > Debian changelog.  A tool which doesn't work this way should be
> > considered broken, IMO.

The method of finding a package's changelog that I had always assumed
would be used is:

if (the package is native via dpkg)
	return /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.gz
else
	return /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.Debian.gz

I hadn't considered searching for changelogs in the way you describe,
though it is probably more robust.

I have no idea what methods the current set of tools that search out
debian changelogs use, and I would be leery of breaking them by changing
policy, if they do happen to use the technique I'd assumed they'd use.

It looks like apt-listchanges for one does look for both changelogs, at
the expense of running dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile twice for native
packages. Note that in this case if it could be assured of my method
working, it could be sped up since it already knows the version number
of the package.

-- 
see shy jo