Bug#850156: Please firmly deprecate vendor-specific series files [and 1 more messages]
On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 at 21:11:11 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> The examples given are for series.ubuntu, which is certainly the case I've
> seen in the wild. Ubuntu, as a project, did not ask for this. As an Ubuntu
> developer, it has never benefitted me. I have only ever seen it used by
> Debian developers who for some reason considered it useful to "merge" an
> Ubuntu delta without actually merging it. This is a development
> antipattern; the source package that is then automatically synced to Ubuntu
> from Debian is then neither under the guidance of an Ubuntu developer caring
> for its quality, nor benefitting from the testing of the package in Debian,
> because the source is no longer the same.
I tried asking codesearch how large this problem is:
https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=%28diff%7Cpatch%29+path%3Adebian%2Fpatches%2F%28.*%29%5C.series&perpkg=1
and the very first hit (at least for me) happens to be an example of it
being a real, practical problem (#894175). In ddccontrol/0.4.3-1:
% diff -u debian/patches/series debian/patches/ubuntu.series
--- debian/patches/series 2018-01-26 09:48:53.000000000 +0000
+++ debian/patches/ubuntu.series 2018-01-26 09:48:53.000000000 +0000
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+0001-ubuntu_desktop_file_use_gksu.patch
% cat debian/patches/0001-ubuntu_desktop_file_use_gksu.patch
Description:
In Ubuntu, Use gksu in gddccontrol.desktop to get access to the DDC/CI device.
...
-Exec=gddccontrol
+Exec=gksu gddccontrol
... but the world has (thankfully) moved on from using gksu, and
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gksu says gksu is no longer present
in Ubuntu bionic. So this is Ubuntu divergence that, because it was not
checked by an Ubuntu maintainer, is no longer valid (and in fact an
Ubuntu maintainer has had to *add* divergence by reverting this change).
smcv
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