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).
