Hi,
at least in scientific packages the file debian/upstream/metadata is
frequently used since it is the established way to specify citations
belonging to some software.. The definition of the fields is given in
Wiki[1].
These data are gathered in UDD[2]. When I inspected the log of the UDD
importer I noticed that there are a lot of redundant fields like
"Homepage" or "Watch" where we agreed that these fields should not be
duplicated in upstream/metadata. There are also typos and freely
invented Fields which are not specified on Wiki[1] (like Distributor',
'CRAN', 'Wiki'). I think it makes sense to have some lintian check for
this undefined fields. I think I'll file a wishlist bug about this
soon.
However, before I do I'd like to discuss the fields Name and Contact.
DEP8 defines[3] the fields Upstream-Name and Upstream-Contact which are
the same values in a file that has a high probability to be properly
maintained. In the case of r-* packages from CRAN or Bioconductor it
can be even automatically updated (via dh-update-R ... its actually not
really done but I think this could be implemented easily - dh-make-R at
least generates the fields at the time of initial package creation).
I wonder whether we should maintaining duplicated information and thus
would like to hear your opinion about orphaning these fields in
debian/upstream/metadata.
Kind regards
Andreas.
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata#Fields
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/UltimateDebianDatabase/
[3] https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
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