Package: lintian Version: 2.5.122 Severity: normal Lintian has recently regressed from correct handling of unfinalised changelog entries (treating them as an unfinalised release), and is now instead giving erroneous tags to the changelog.
For example, a source package whose latest changelog entry is: ===== ipsum (3.4.5-2) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. * Cras in sem consequat, consectetur ligula ac, volutpat nulla. -- ===== This is a valid changelog entry, unfinalised (so there is no correct "person who prepared this release of the package") during development and prior to release. In earlier Lintian versions (e.g. 2.5.94) an unfinalised changelog entry would be handled correctly: no maintainer and no release timestamp. The current Lintian triggers many incorrect tags for this, including: * changelog-should-mention-nmu * source-nmu-has-incorrect-version-number * syntax-error-in-debian-changelog "badly formatted trailer line" * syntax-error-in-debian-changelog "found start of entry where expected more change data or trailer" These tags are noise when attempting to test a still-in-development package. (Could this be related to the recent Lintian change “[…] now we are trialling using gbp-dch”?) Such an unfinalised changelog entry is valid when the package is not released (as explicitly stated in the distribution name “UNRELEASED”). Please restore the correct handling by Lintian of valid unfinalised changelog entries, to allow a clean report during development of a package release. -- \ “Software patents provide one more means of controlling access | `\ to information. They are the tool of choice for the internet | _o__) highwayman.” —Anthony Taylor | Ben Finney <bign...@debian.org>
