Hi Alexis, On 18.08.20 23:10, Alexis Murzeau wrote:
> I'm wondering why Vcs-* fields in debian/control (Vcs-Browser and/or > Vcs-<type>) > are not recommended (or maybe even strongly recommended) ? (I mean here that > I think > having Vcs-* fields should be recommended for active packages) > There is no lintian tag for missing Vcs-* fields (not even a low severity one, > but I don't know if it's because of lack of interest or because of the > policy). If one uses lintian in its pedantic mode, and a package is co-maintained, i.e. has a Maintainer and Uploader field, then lintian does recommend using a VCS: https://lintian.debian.org/tags/co-maintained-package-with-no-vcs-fields.html I agree that it might be useful to extend this tag to non co-maintained packages as well, potentially at least in pedantic mode. > Maybe the fact that we still have the package' source tarballs for each > released version is enough, but this loose the VCS history and ongoing work in > case someone else wants to contribute too. I fully agree with you here. For non actively maintained packages on could check them into Git oneself and then start a history from there, and potentially update the package. For actively maintained packages I personally do not understand that people in 2020 develop code without using a VCS and still put out only tarballs. But I might be unaware of some corner cases where this is the only way to do it. - ulrike