Re: How to patch files in a package's debian directory

[Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org>]

Is the package in question maintained in a version control repository
(apt-cache showsrc pkgname | grep ^Vcs might help to determine this).
If so, you could record the debian-specific changes in a commit and
either mail the commit to a bug number or push a copy of your modified
checkout somewhere (I use temporary github accounts for this, when the
source is in a git repo to start with), thereby avoiding the limitation
in dpkg-source.