Bug#689342: qa.debian.org: incorrectly shows a new upstream version for a native package

["Francesco Poli \(wintermute\)" <invernomuto@paranoici.org>]

Package: qa.debian.org
Severity: normal

Hi QA team,
I am the maintainer of apt-listbugs.

The PTS page for my package [1] currently tells me:

| A new upstream version is available: 0.1.8,
| you should consider packaging it.

[1] http://packages.qa.debian.org/a/apt-listbugs.html

This does not look right, for at least two reasons:

 * first of all, apt-listbugs is a native Debian package: I would
   say that talking about an upstream version to be packaged is
   basically meaningless...

 * secondly, version 0.1.8 is (obviously) already in unstable, hence
   there's nothing yet to be packaged...

   $ rmadison apt-listbugs 
   apt-listbugs | 0.1.3 | squeeze | source, all
   apt-listbugs | 0.1.7 | wheezy  | source, all
   apt-listbugs | 0.1.8 | sid     | source, all


I think that native packages should be automatically excluded from
the uscan runs by the PTS...


By the way, why was uscan run for apt-listbugs in the first place?

My package does not have any watch file (it's a native package after
all, as I said...).

I read on the Debian wiki [2] that DEHS also have a Watch Wizard, which
guesses upstream URLs by looking at debian/copyright files.
Is this the mechanism to be blamed?

If this is the case, I am more and more convinced that native packages
should be excluded.
Maybe I could change something in the debian/copyright file [3], in
order to avoid triggering the Watch Wizard, but it feels wrong to try
to dodge the heuristics: it's the Wizard that should be a little
smarter and know that native packages should not be examined...

[2] http://wiki.debian.org/DEHS
[3] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/a/apt-listbugs/current/copyright

Please clarify and/or fix this issue.

Or otherwise, if there's something wrong in my package, please explain,
and I will happily try to fix it.


Thanks for your time!



-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (800, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash