Bug#992569: missing-debian-watch-file-standard files for watch files without content

[Jelmer Vernooij]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.104.0
Severity: minor


The missing-debian-watch-file-standard tag triggers for a lot of debian/watch
files that have no contents, or only contain comments.

For example, this is the case for the "aladin" package, where the comments are:

# The latest version of upstream can be found at
# http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/java/nph-aladin.pl?frame=downloading .
# Since upstream does not provide a versioning scheme, however,
# (source archives are generally named "AladinSrc.jar") the watch
# file syntax will not have any effect.
#
# A tools to download + version the upstream Jarball can be found at:
# https://github.com/sladen/vo/blob/master/aladin-meta/fetch-aladin-source.py

https://lintian.debian.org/tags/missing-debian-watch-file-standard

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.0
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.10.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii binutils 2.37-4
ii bzip2 1.0.8-4
ii diffstat 1.64-1
ii dpkg 1.20.9
ii dpkg-dev 1.20.9
ii file 1:5.39-3
ii gettext 0.21-4
ii gpg 2.2.27-2
ii intltool-debian 0.35.0+20060710.5
ii libapt-pkg-perl 0.1.40
ii libarchive-zip-perl 1.68-1
ii libcapture-tiny-perl 0.48-1
ii libclass-xsaccessor-perl 1.19-3+b7
ii libclone-perl 0.45-1+b1
ii libconfig-tiny-perl 2.26-1
ii libcpanel-json-xs-perl 4.25-1+b1
ii libdata-dpath-perl 0.58-1
ii libdata-validate-domain-perl 0.10-1.1
ii libdevel-size-perl 0.83-1+b2
ii libdpkg-perl 1.20.9
ii libemail-address-xs-perl 1.04-1+b3
ii libfile-basedir-perl 0.08-1
ii libfile-find-rule-perl 0.34-1
ii libfont-ttf-perl 1.06-1.1
ii libhtml-html5-entities-perl 0.004-1.1
ii libipc-run3-perl 0.048-2
ii libjson-maybexs-perl 1.004003-1
ii liblist-compare-perl 0.55-1
ii liblist-moreutils-perl 0.430-2
ii liblist-utilsby-perl 0.11-1
ii libmoo-perl 2.004004-1
ii libmoox-aliases-perl 0.001006-1.1
ii libnamespace-clean-perl 0.27-1
ii libpath-tiny-perl 0.118-1
ii libperlio-gzip-perl 0.19-1+b7
ii libproc-processtable-perl 0.59-2+b1
ii libsereal-decoder-perl 4.018+ds-1+b1
ii libsereal-encoder-perl 4.018+ds-1+b1
ii libtext-glob-perl 0.11-1
ii libtext-levenshteinxs-perl 0.03-4+b8
ii libtext-markdown-discount-perl 0.12-1+b1
ii libtext-xslate-perl 3.5.8-1+b1
ii libtime-duration-perl 1.21-1
ii libtime-moment-perl 0.44-1+b3
ii libtimedate-perl 2.3300-2
ii libtry-tiny-perl 0.30-1
ii libtype-tiny-perl 1.012002-1
ii libunicode-utf8-perl 0.62-1+b2
ii liburi-perl 5.08-1
ii libxml-libxml-perl 2.0134+dfsg-2+b1
ii libyaml-libyaml-perl 0.82+repack-1+b1
ii lzip 1.22-3
ii lzop 1.04-2
ii man-db 2.9.4-2
ii patchutils 0.4.2-1
ii perl [libdigest-sha-perl] 5.32.1-5
ii t1utils 1.41-4
ii unzip 6.0-26
ii xz-utils 5.2.5-2

lintian recommends no packages.

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn binutils-multiarch <none>
ii libtext-template-perl 1.59-1

-- no debconf information

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 3:33 AM Jelmer Vernooij <jel...@debian.org> wrote:
>
> The missing-debian-watch-file-standard tag triggers for a lot of debian/watch
> files that have no contents, or only contain comments.

The watch file is probably not the best place to add manual download
instructions. For aladdin, it looks like a different version of the
link is listed in d/copyright. In addition to upstream metadata, there
is also README.source [1] which I personally find the best place to
document how to get sources.

For an example, please consider ppp: [2]

# How to create a snapshot from git:
#
# mkdir GIT
# git clone git://ozlabs.org/~paulus/ppp.git
# cd ..
#
# rsync --delete --archive --verbose GIT/ppp/ ppp-2.4.5~$(date
+%Y%m%d).orig/ --exclude=.git
# cp -a ppp-2.4.5~$(date +%Y%m%d).orig/ ppp-2.4.5~$(date +%Y%m%d)/
#

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

[1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#source-package-handling-debian-readme-source
[2] https://sources.debian.org/src/ppp/2.4.6-3.1/debian/README.source/