I see no benefit in changing this, which I think is the strongest argument against doing so given that it's been an RC bug to have a non-makefile debian/rules for both sarge and etch.
The advantage of the current rule is that we can make certain basic assumptions that we would only otherwise be able to make if the people writing non-makefile debian/rules files were quite skilled. I'm dubious that this will be the case. It also helps in modifying other people's packages (which I know can be difficult for other reasons, but at least I have a head start when I can assume make). I also could have sworn that we recently tightened this requirement, but I can find no mention of that in changelog with some quick searches. Am I just imagining things? -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]