1. Forum
  2. Usenet
  3. LINUX.DEBIAN.MAINT.DPKG

  • Bug#1053705: dpkg-dev: please use a different word than Maintainer from

    From Guillem Jover@1:229/2 to David Bremner on Fri Oct 13 03:30:01 2023
    XPost: linux.debian.bugs.dist
    From: guillem@debian.org

    On Mon, 2023-10-09 at 07:59:05 -0300, David Bremner wrote:
    Package: dpkg-dev
    Version: 1.22.0
    Severity: minor

    The use of Maintainer in the output of dpkg-parsechangelog is
    confusing, because it suggests that dpkg-parsechangelog is reporting
    the Maintainer field from debian/control. I suggest Changed-By for consistency with changes files.

    While that might have perhaps been a better field name, this is now
    part of interfaces, both for the command line tool, and the perl
    modules. So the only way I can see this could be renamed, if desired,
    would be by introducing some kind of versioning for the output, which
    could not be the default anyway, so the confusion would linger around
    (or might be made worse).

    The naming is also used in the description of the debian/changelog
    format both in deb-changelog(5) and in the Debian Policy.

    In any case, for now, I'm thinking about queueing the attached
    documentation patch to try to clarify a bit things, and will ponder
    about a possible versioned output.

    Regards,
    Guillem

    diff --git i/man/dpkg-parsechangelog.pod w/man/dpkg-parsechangelog.pod
    index 52026ed04..4a6ffb182 100644
    --- i/man/dpkg-parsechangelog.pod
    +++ w/man/dpkg-parsechangelog.pod
    @@ -109,6 +109,10 @@ concatenated (space-separated) comments from all the versions requested.

    =item B<Maintainer:> I<author>

    +The name and email address of the person who prepared these changes,
    +they are B<not> necessarily those of the uploader or the usual package +maintainer.
    +
    =item B<Date:> I<date>

    The date of the entry as a string, as it appears in the changelog.
    @@ -272,6 +276,13 @@ number itself.

    =back

    +=head1 BUGS
    +
    +The B<Maintainer> field has a confusing name matching the field in
    +the F<debian/control> file but not its exact semantics,
    +where its meaning would be better represented by the B<Changed-By> field
    +name used in the F<.changes> file.
    +
    =head1 SEE ALSO

    B<deb-changelog>(5).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
  • From David Bremner@1:229/2 to All on Mon Oct 9 13:10:01 2023
    XPost: linux.debian.bugs.dist
    From: bremner@debian.org

    Package: dpkg-dev
    Version: 1.22.0
    Severity: minor

    -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
    Hash: SHA256

    The use of Maintainer in the output of dpkg-parsechangelog is
    confusing, because it suggests that dpkg-parsechangelog is reporting
    the Maintainer field from debian/control. I suggest Changed-By for consistency with changes files.


    - -- Package-specific info:

    - -- System Information:
    Debian Release: trixie/sid
    APT prefers testing
    APT policy: (500, 'testing')
    Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

    Kernel: Linux 6.4.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/12 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
    Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
    Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
    Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
    LSM: AppArmor: enabled

    Versions of packages dpkg-dev depends on:
    ii binutils 2.41-5
    ii bzip2 1.0.8-5+b1
    ii libdpkg-perl 1.22.0
    ii make 4.3-4.1
    ii patch 2.7.6-7
    ii perl 5.36.0-9
    ii tar 1.34+dfsg-1.2
    ii xz-utils 5.4.4-0.1

    Versions of packages dpkg-dev recommends:
    ii build-essential 12.10
    ii fakeroot 1.32.1-1
    ii gcc [c-compiler] 4:13.2.0-1
    ii gcc-12 [c-compiler] 12.3.0-9
    ii gcc-13 [c-compiler] 13.2.0-4
    ii gnupg 2.2.40-1.1
    ii gpgv 2.2.40-1.1
    ii libalgorithm-merge-perl 0.08-5

    Versions of packages dpkg-dev suggests:
    ii debian-keyring 2023.05.26

    - -- no debconf information

    -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

    iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEkiyHYXwaY0SiY6fqA0U5G1WqFSEFAmUj3PgACgkQA0U5G1Wq FSH3Vg/9FPpO2BQXc4poo1KmvBlRuq3jKVBSusG0IvASO7vYkomU3xvIZkPCfArk fHXOIwsFVsrF0nByyInAL65V9yMAJ8K89J0fJVB88xCoUCWolTFNSfUfyaUGXzIq /EAD1IUNO4qdM+urpWy0zkjRMz0K5o2mh7PslyvhHep1EuPIPSQpejDGUsic1WKn booDmq6gUY2vk3zqTSXEusY+Rjxy8OaxNp+q2fLw0z/4Tu4YMPpigwFdkoJYA8LK EmFpSvaAtNG7wkmr1AxeeziKs3DPGgqZqpjPu/XNy+/18VVSrvBI+qsB3WMVerzF a+5NoandSh0gjauChMgo9waGS2h3iNMpxRKwM9NBJQX6Aml0KZ4K75ONn1b5hyJa 9Cu3a/V8GGW5xSojqaqTM9rQGfxZDTMvcsOug4InspY8O1vJ334dMVHg0JneUKSB vMmBbnEvn25CYz5Gz2cu+xtuJCoAzJOMdLlrk9K0RA7fQJ0vmF8pwdOtREiEzDEK fKl8yrTlfdWjXB9B3DHITskDtthFqbQE+APOnmKfhJXWCjztjNOB+nEF27gj09yv UP9WU5zyEMvoyVnsEGyaVvrkTys83zay+1M7EdrXcZ/N4P5mDEAyO4UnTrb9caRy UGgSl+2iKwK4fqfxDQyCrYj8l4/6XrQj2QwNRJ3YgejSptw3tsM=
    =qZyc
    -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)