Hello, On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 08:39:01AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > If Lintian says that the Standards-Version field is out of date, I then > open /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist.txt.gz, scroll down > to the current value of Standards-Version, and then read backwards to the > top, checking each item against my knowledge of the package to see if > there's anything I need to update. Then I update Standards-Version in the > packaging.
What you've described is that we expect other package maintainers are doing, and this allows non-maintainers of a given package to decide whether they should actually file a bug about a policy violation they discover. Suppose that policy 1.2.3 introduces a new requirement and src:foo has not yet been updated. I notice this about foo, and look inside, and see that foo declares compliance with policy 1.2.2. Then I know that next time the package maintainer looks at foo, Lintian will warn then that the standards version is out of date, and they will look at the upgrading checklist and fix the problem in the way Russ describes. That means I only have to file a bug against foo if I need the requirement satisfied sooner than the next upload -- if, for example, the package doesn't see frequent upstream releases. So by means of the standards version field we've avoided filing a new bug. This is good because it's a kind of automatic bug triage: the problem with foo will get dealt with thanks to the Lintian warning the maintainer is going to see, but we haven't made an immediate demand on anyone's attention with a bug report. This conserves people's time and energy for the benefit of the project. -- Sean Whitton
