Package: debian-policy Version 4.6.0.0 Hi!
dpkg 1.19.0 introduced, following the request in #555743, a bunch of new
substvars. Notably, it now handles ${source:Synopsis} and
${source:Extended-Description} that are described as follow:
source:Synopsis
The source package synopsis, extracted from the source stanza
Description field, if it exists
source:Extended-Description
The source package extended description, extracted from the
source stanza Description field, if it exists
Currently Policy ยง5.2 lists the allowed known fields, and Description is
accepted only in the "binary package paragraphs", not in the one for the
source package.
As documented in the bug report mentioned above, these are the main
benefits of having a Description in the source paragraph:
* helps de-duplicate the description in the binary paragraphs (mostly
relevant for libraries and other packages that build many binaries
and share a common description). Note that this would only
de-duplicate d/control, the binary DEBIAN/control of each binary
package would still keep the generated long description.
* ship a generic source-level descrption of the package, which just
make sense if one thinks about it
* as a consequence of the above, a bunch of tools (DDPO, PTS, etc)
would be able to drop the weird and unnatural logic that they use to
pick a description for the source package
The main "bad" consequence would be that Description would be exported
in the .dsc and as such end up in the Sources index. This is probably
what we want anyway, but with all the people complaining about how big
the index is getting it's something to consider. However it's also true
that realistically very few packages are going to make use of this
facility in the near future so it shouldn't really matter IMHO.
If I get no pushbacks I'll also propose some text later on when I'm
freer (unless somebody beats me to it!).
--
regards,
Mattia Rizzolo
GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18 4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540 .''`.
More about me: https://mapreri.org : :' :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia `-
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