Natty: Where did my changelogs go?

[Clint Byrum]

On Fri, 2010-11-19 at 21:45 +0100, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> ]] Martin Pitt 
> 
> | Tollef Fog Heen [2010-11-14 22:20 +0100]:
> | > ]] Martin Pitt 
> | > This looks like a violation of the GPL (v2 at least) 2a):
> | > 
> | >     a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
> | >     stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
> | > 
> | > Has anybody looked into that or given that any thought?
> | 
> | Our legal department has checked GPL, MPL, Apache, Artistic, and a few
> | other common licenses, and said that it was okay to ship binaries
> | without changelogs (at all -- and now we at least ship the topmost
> | bits of it).
> | 
> | Above clause doesn't apply to binaries, but to the source code
> | apparently.
> 
> That still means any scripts or files where what's in the source is also
> in the binary and where said script or file is changed requires the
> changelogs to be present.  Are anybody making sure that's the case?
> 

Good point. This should actually be pretty straight forward.

In pkgbinarymangler, scan diffs (main diff.gz for debsrc 1.0, patches
for 3.0 (quilt), other patches if found under debian) for changed files,
and use rsync-like checks to ensure none of the changed files made it
into any of the binary packages. (rsync like meaning, check size, then
check crc32, then stronger hash..). If any changed files made it in,
then keep the changelog.

I think given Martin Pitt's comments about the legal review, this only
applies to scripts and include headers. It wouldn't be necessary for
binaries that include sections of changed text.