Bug#736760: Conflict between debian/upstream (DEP-12) & debian/upstream/ (uscan)

[Filippo Rusconi]

Greetings Fellow Developers,

I would like to put here some words that I had in mind since I
discovered the problem with the upstream file/dir in debian/.

It is already a respectable while that we use the debian/upstream
*file* for the documentation of bibliographic data in packages that
might have articles published about the software packaged.

I discovered recently that upstream was to become a directory in
debian/. While I think that such a choice might be a reasonably good
idea, I have to admit my astonishment at the total absence of
information/discussion around that matter, from the side of the
devscripts folks, as this choice fell us--designers and happy users of
debian/upstream as a file totally out of the blue.

On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 09:21:02AM +0100, Andreas Tille wrote:
>On Fri, Feb 07, 2014 at 08:07:41PM -0500, James McCoy wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 07, 2014 at 10:32:52AM +0100, Daniel Leidert wrote:
>> > James McCoy wrote:
>> > >Part of the reason I chose to use debian/upstream/ is that an extensible
>> > >location for upstream related information (similar in spirit to
>> > >debian/source/) could be useful.
>> >
>> > I've really wondered, why you didn't use debian/source/ for this purpose
>> > and introduced another directory? Why not put the key used to sign the
>> > upstream source right into debian/source/?
>>
>> debian/source/ is for content related to the source package.
>>
>> debian/upstream/ would be for content related to upstream.
>>
>> There's a distinct separation there and as the signing key is, IMO,
>> obviously upstream metadata it's not appropriate for debian/source/.
>> The only relation it has to the source package is that it's used to
>> verify one component of the source package.
>


>I wonder whether you have further files in mind which should end up in
>debian/upstream/ dir.  Could your please give some reasons why you
>dropped the previously used location, debian/upstream-signing-key.pgp,
>in favour of introducing a directory which even conflicts with some
>other file name which is discussed in a DEP-12 without minding any
>discussion.  IMHO, it is simply not the right way to to a grab into the
>name space without dicussion and creating work for your fellow DDs by
>doing so.

+1

>If I could see any vision behind your change I would have no problem to
>follow this vision but even if I have some very slight sympathy from the
>"esthetics" of naming I consider the principle of "never change a
>running system" as way more important than some slight esthetical change
>specifically introduced without any coordination / discussion in the
>first place.

+1

>In short: If there is some big plan for a debian/upstream/ dir please
>lay it out for public discussion.  Otherwise I'd be in favour of
>reverting the change in devscripts.

+1

Happy hacking,
Filippo

-- 
Filippo Rusconi, PhD - public crypto key C78F687C @ pgp.mit.edu
Researcher at CNRS and Debian Developer <lopippo at debian.org>
Author of ``massXpert''     at http://www.massxpert.org