Hi debian-qa! having a package upstream up-to-date is important and this is why we have debian/watch files used by uupdate. Fortunately the PTS checks and reports if a new upstream version is available IF it founds the debian/watch file for package. Unfortunately only a few packages provide this file, partial results (I stopped at pool/main/p/phpgroupware-inv using www/bin/extract_watch.py from PTS) are below:
out of 4827 diffs examined (I expect native debian packages to be updated upstream, CVS doesn't count of course) only 698 (14%) have that file (and it's not guaranteed it's valid) Usually it is expected for a DD to follow or at least be subscribed to program developing, while this is true for big projects this is false for small projects and there using debian/watch would be really useful. Unfortunately it is not habit to include the file, possible solutions are to mass-filing wishlist bugs (painful but probably effective) giving hints and guidelines how to write a valid watch file and/or manually find out the homepage and file pattern for package, perhaps using the informations from /usr/share/doc/<package> and/or googling. please comment on this, any hint/suggestion/insult is welcome! filippo -- Filippo Giunchedi GNU/PG key: 6B79D401 Random signature below: All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... -- Larry Wall
pgpVBfDGYjP2B.pgp
Description: PGP signature
