Bug#250202: [PROPOSAL] "debian/README.source" file for packages with non-trivial source
Hi.
I just wanted to say a few things about this topic, even though the bug
has been inactive for a while.
I notice two things:
Bill (forgive me if I got the name wrong, I didn't re-check before
writing this mail) wants sources to be unpacked by dpkg-source -x in a
way that patches (like those from dpatch) are already applied.
However: There is a problem with the approach he suggested: If I were to
list the "patch" target instead of the "unpatch" target as a dependency
of the "clean" target, the dpatch-patches would end up twice inside the
.diff.gz: Once in debian/patches and once already applied (and in
addition, there would be the tracking data dpatch puts in
debian/patched). Quite the contrary of the cleanup-effect wanted by
using dpatch in the first place.
On the other hand, I can understand why people would like to immediately
see the final, fully patched source tree when they extracted them with
dpkg-source -x, without the need to install anything besides dpkg-source.
But, seeing all the pro's and con's in this bug's log, I would prefer
(as has been suggested) some change to the policy, requiring (or at
least strongly suggesting: should-style rules) suitable documentation of
how to get to the fully unpackged and fully packed source with minimal
additional software. And some documentation how to get own changes to
get built into the package (not overwritten by debian/rules clean).
regards,
Sven
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