Bug#784397: Workflow with latest changelog entry un-finalised

[Barry Warsaw]

On May 12, 2015, at 06:53 PM, Ben Finney wrote:

>While the package is marked “UNRELEASED”, putting a completed release
>signature *in the VCS* is an arbitrary untruth. Untruths don't belong
>in the VCS, is my position.

The interpretation of that "signature" line is at best ambiguous.  Policy $4.4
doesn't say it's a completed release signature, only that

    The maintainer name and email address used in the changelog should be the
    details of the person who prepared this release of the package. They are
    not necessarily those of the uploader or usual package maintainer.[18] The
    information here will be copied to the Changed-By field in the .changes
    file (see Changed-By, Section 5.6.4), and then later used to send an
    acknowledgement when the upload has been installed.

IMHO, even though the preparation of the release isn't complete, it's not a
lie to sign the unreleased entry, and to commit that to the vcs.  The
UNRELEASED tag is a clear indication that the release is a WIP.  Still, it
seems perfectly valid to indicate who is preparing that WIP.  That can be
pretty useful if the new release languishes and someone else wants to finish
it.

>So, the changelog is finalised temporarily every time I make a build
>happen. Before the release, though, the finalised changelog entry is a *lie*,
>a fiction for the purpose of testing the build. That lie doesn't make it into
>VCS.

Your workflow is Emacs dependent, so it doesn't work as well for a
collaborator (or sponsor!) who uses a different editor.  Even though I use
Emacs, I don't use the same workflow, and since the other package building
tools clearly aren't prepared to handle this workflow, I think it's not worth
propagating this quirk.

As I say though YMMV, and since it works for you, I have no right to tell you
not to do it.  But do realize that it makes it more difficult for others to
work on, or review, the package.
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