Re: Temporary solution for changelog problem in binNMUs

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Ian Jackson wrote:

> The real problem is that these changelog files are primarily intended
> for human beings.  They should live in /usr/share/doc, and their
> location should be transparent.

I was convinced of this until I remembered that package descriptions
are very similar in this respect.  My gut feeling to expect to find
changelogs in /usr/share/doc/<package> is actually mostly due to
habit, I suspect.

That doesn't mean it makes sense to ignore that habit, though.  If we
go down this path that dpkg might need to install a symlink under
/usr/share/doc to help people get used to the file's new location.
"dpkg-query --status" should give a hint about how to show the
changelog, too.

> The right answer is the IMO the splitting as proposed by Ansgar.

One problem that that doesn't solve is what to do when a package would
be able to borrow its /doc/<package> directory from another package
(using a symlink) but for the changelog and copyright (which gets even
harder when binnmus are involved).  See http://bugs.debian.org/556015

Thanks,
Jonathan