Patch systems in packages

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday 19 August 2008 16:41, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
> ti, 2008-08-19 kello 16:34 -0400, Phillip Susi kirjoitti:
> > I have to disagree.  If you are applying patches you must use a patch
> > system to comply with the debian packaging guidelines ( otherwise you
> > modify the .orig.tar.gz and you shouldn't be doing that ).
>
> That's not actually correct. The Debian packaging tools don't require
> you to modify .orig.tar.gz if you're not using a patch system: instead,
> any changes you make outside debian/ end up in .diff.gz, just like the
> changes you make inside debian/.

Yes and our merge tools generally handle this case very well.  I support using 
patch systems, but if the Debian maintainer hasn't bothered, I think it's not 
worth the trouble for us to add it.

Scott K