Is there any reasonable situation where modification (during build) of
ANY existing files under debian/ is a good idea?
I know modifying existing non-debian/ files is common to patch
source-level problems, but is modifying existing debian/ files wide
spread? Could anyone do a archive-wide non-root rebuild with 'chmod -R
-w debian/' with debian/ owned by some other user?
/Simon
Chris Hofstaedtler <zeha@debian.org> writes:
> Package: debian-policy
> X-Debbugs-CC: debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org, ftpmaster@debian.org, jspricke@debian.org, josch@debian.org
>
> Dear Policy Editors,
>
> it appears that currently there is no requirement for d/control to
> stay the same before and after a build. However, many things require
> this to be the case, and ftp-master also requires this in their
> reject-faq [1].
>
> Below is a minimal patch, mostly as a discussion starter. I've
> ponderred if listing examples of things breaking would be good, but
> decided against it for the policy text.
>
> This change suggestion started when Jochen et al discovered that the
> "pcp" package currently rewrites its d/control file, which causes
> rebuilds of the in-archive package to produce a different result. [2]
>
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
>
> [1] https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html "debian/control breakage #2"
> [2] https://reproduce.debian.net/amd64/#pcp and https://bugs.debian.org/1102289
>
> (CC'ed people I expect to be interested.)
>
>
> diff --git i/policy/ch-controlfields.rst w/policy/ch-controlfields.rst
> index 3151816..cffca22 100644
> --- i/policy/ch-controlfields.rst
> +++ w/policy/ch-controlfields.rst
> @@ -98,7 +98,8 @@ Debian source package template control files -- ``debian/control``
>
> The ``debian/control`` file contains the most vital (and
> version-independent) information about the source package and about the
> -binary packages it creates.
> +binary packages it creates. The file must stay unchanged when building
> +a package.
>
> The first stanza of the control file contains information about the
> source package in general. The subsequent stanzas each describe a
>
>