What if we just decide that changes made to upstream sources[1] qualify
as a bug? A change might be a bug in upstream, or in the debianisation,
or in Debian for requiring the change. But just call it a bug.
Everything else follows from that quite naturally..

The bug can be tracked, with a patch, in our BTS. The bug can be
forwarded upstream as the patch is sent upstream. A tag "divergence" can
be used to query for all such bugs, or to sort such bugs out of the way.

Other tags and BTS data can be used if desired. For example, "divergence
fixed-upstream", "divergence wontfix", "divergence help". Versioning
information can be used to track when an upstream version resolves the
divergence. Discussion and updated patches can be CCed to the bug log.

The BTS could be enhanced to allow opening a bug and forwarding it
upstream in a single message. (IIRC currently, it takes two). This would
allow a very simple workflow where a DD makes a change to a package,
generates a patch, and sends it upstream while also recording the
divergence in the BTS.

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 09:01:08PM +0000, Joey Hess wrote:

WTF ? What's the point of free software if we invent rules for not
modifying them ? And well, we're in a bad posture then, because glibc
without patches can't work. Striving for minimal differences is good,
but deciding a change is a bug ? please…

--
·O· Pierre Habouzit
··O madcoder@debian.org
OOO http://www.madism.org

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we had to have this

http://xkcd.com/424/

a.
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Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Stephane Glondu glondu.net>

* Package name : mumudvb
Version : 1.2.5
Upstream Author : Brice Dubost braice.net>
* URL : http://mumudvb.braice.net
* License : GPL
Programming Lang: C
Description : Multicast a DVB transponder over multiple IP addresses

Mumudvb is a program who can redistribute stream from DVB on a
network, in multicast. It's main feature is to take a whole
transponder and put each channel on a different multicast IP.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

OoO En cette fin de matinée radieuse du samedi 17 mai 2008, vers 11:17,
Alexander Bürger googlemail.com> disait:

Hi Alexander!

[This message is about using Replaces without Conflicts]

I am not sure either. As you noted, the policy does not say to not use
it alone, but this just seems odd to me. Let's hope that someone else
will enlighten us on this matter.