On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 02:36:14PM +0200, Mike Gabriel wrote: > > This feature is a very bad idea. I can see why people thought it > > might be nice: it means you can use the same (or very similar) .dsc > > (and perhaps vcs history) on different distros. > Disagreeing here... > The vendor.series file is a really helpful thing if you share packaging > workload with people from different Debian derivatives. > My main context when working for Debian derivates is: get everything into > Debian, bind the derivatives' devs' (wo)man(or other) power to Debian and > allow them to achieve their goals for their derivative distro at the same > time. Maintaining several slightly different src:package versions in Debian > and derivative X, Y and Z costs a lot of time. > The vendor.series file is a tiny helper tool, that eases people's day if > working in a context I described above. > With Ubuntu, where the vendor.series (i.e. ubuntu.series) file is used here > and there in my team contexts, you sometimes encounter Ubuntu patches in > third party package (which you don't have impact on) that break a certain > behaviour in a vanilla Debian package. Thus, having the mechanism to easily > patch the Ubuntu build of your package is very handy. This post makes me think it all the more urgent that it be disallowed, to the point that I am considering whether Ubuntu should patch dpkg downstream to disregard vendor.series files. There are two perfectly well supported workflows here for Ubuntu: you can make your patches upstreamable (to Debian or to upstream) such that they can be applied to the source and any per-distro behavior differences can be accommodated via build-time flags; or you can keep your patches downstream in Ubuntu only, and handle new Debian package versions via a manual merge. There is no need for a third workflow to accommodate improperly-upstreamed patches and breaking the behavior of dpkg-source. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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