Hi!

This package requires both changes in Debian between freeze and
non-freeze times, and also is one of the first ones that need
modifications when creating a derivative.

To make handling both these cases, I've prepared the attached patch
which tries to parametrize everything that is changed in Debian during
the release cycle so that it's easier to maintain. And so that
derivatives can have an easier time deriving too.

The new workflow for Debian would require only touching three variables
in params/debian. For a derivative, it would require adding a new
params/<vendor> file and changing the params/default symlink to point
to that. This would massively reduce the amount of changes needed in
derivatives, as seen in <http://deriv.debian.net/patches/b/base-files/>.


I've tried to document all variables in params/debian so that they are
easy to understand. I've also switched from #SUBST# to @SUBST@ as that
works better within a Makefile.


Let me know what you think, and whether you'd like to see anything
changed?

(BTW, I guess you do not manage this package under a VCS?)

Thanks,
Guillem

Hi!

Now that you do, I've updated and rebased the patch against your repo,
and published the changes at:

https://salsa.debian.org/guillem/base-files/-/commits/pu/parametrize

Which includes the main change, plus a couple of demonstration changes
to see how this could work during the Debian freeze, or for a derivative.
(These are not intended to be applied, just to make sure.)

I've tested the main change by creating .deb packages before and after
and running diffoscope on the reproducible output.

And I'm attaching the commits here for your convenience.

Thanks,
Guillem

[...]

Hello Guillem.

This is still very intrusive and I still don't like it...

Last time I had to update base-files for a new release, the things
that had to be changed were done in their own commits, easy to
identify in the git history. I see that as an improvement over the
previous status, when all the changes were mixed in a single shot.

So, after base-files is finally in git, and for something which
is done once or twice every two years, I think this is not such
a big deal to justify the added complexity.

[ I'm still keeping the bug open in either case ]

Thanks.