Re: [Monotone-debian] Uploading 0.42 for squeeze, and structure of the debian branch

[Ludovic Brenta]

Richard Levitte:
> Zack Weinberg said:
> 
> zackw> $ tar zxf monotone_0.43.tar.gz
> zackw> $ cd monotone_0.43
> zackw> $ mtn clone -b net.venge.monotone.debian-dir monotone.ca debian
> zackw> $ dpkg-buildpackage -i
> zackw> 
> zackw> What do you say?
> 
> I disagree.
> 
> If you want to release a patched up version for some glitch that is
> specific to Debian but is in the rest of the source, you basically
> can't today without waiting for a new mainstream release.

That is true only if you refuse to have Debian-specific patches where they
belong, i.e. in the *.diff.gz.  I routinely patch upstream releases in
most of my Debian packages.  I use quilt (call it from debian/rules) and
keep the patches under version control with monotone.

> Besides, I don't see much difficulty in this:
> 
> $ cp PATH/TO/monotone_0.43.tar.gz .
> $ mtn clone monotone.ca net.venge.monotone.debian-diff monotone-0.43
> $ cd monotone-0.43
> $ dpkg-buildpackage -i

I do.  The checkout from net.venge.monotone.debian-diff contains
build-related files that are different from the ones in the tarball (I'm
thinking specifically of autoconf and its ilk here).  The checkout risks
creating a Debian-specific *.diff.gz that reverts the tarball into a
checkout.  It is possible to build from the tarball without calling
autoreconf; this is not true in the checkout.

I definitely prefer Zack's suggestion (which is also mine) and I can
testify that this works in practice.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.