Files added to a package? Patches or files in debian/?

[Morten Kjeldgaard]

Is there a consensus on what to do when you are adding files to a package? I 
am thinking for example on a situation where I am authoring a complete 
autotools system to a software package, and upstream is, say, dead or 
unresponsive ;-) 

Of course, I can add these as patches against /dev/null, but that honestly 
seems a bit awkward.

An alternative is to put the files in debian/ and let debian/rules move them 
to their proper place in the directory tree. 

What say you, oh MOTUs?

Cheers,
Morten aka mok0