Bug#914383: debian-policy: re-encode virtual package list in YAML

[Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org>]

On Thu, Nov 22, 2018 at 08:22:42PM +0000, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> Convert the plain-text virtual-package-names-list to a structured,
> machine-readable document, encoded in YAML.
> 
> Delete the suffixed ChangeLog. From this point forward, changes to the file
> should be recorded in the version control system in which Policy is maintained.

Hello Jonathan,
Thanks for your effort working on this.

However, the git changelog is not shipped in the policy package, so this
is not a replacement to the enclosed ChangeLog.

Since such virtual package names can appear in the archive before
adoption and after deprecation, it is important that the reader
has access to such changelog in a readable form.

This is especially important because no all virtual packages appear in
this list (due to the "cooperating group of packages" exception) so the
fact that a name does not appear in the list does not mean it is for an
obsolete virtual package.

The changelog could be kept as comment in the YAML file, or maybe better,
the adoption and deprecation date could be simply added to the YAML
data (but this require adding back the obsolete packages to the list).
This way this would be machine readable too.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.