Package: devscripts Version: 2.17.5 Severity: normal devscripts.conf(5) says:
The two configuration files are /etc/devscripts.conf for system-wide defaults and ~/.devscripts for per-user settings. They are written with bash(1) syntax, but should only have comments and simple variable assignments in them; they are both sourced (if present) by many of the devscripts scripts. This is a hack, not a proper handling of the configuration. As seen in #863101, "they are both sourced" implies that one whitespace too many can have unexpected consequences. The "but should only have" statement implies that users cannot rely on being able todo anything other than variable assignment in them. It would be much more robust against user typos if the configuration files would be properly parsed instead of blindly executed.
