As 3.0 format packages are now allowed into the archive, I am thinking about what I would like the workflow to look like and hoping one of them fits me.

For new upstream releases, I am imaginging something like:

1. New upstream version is released.

2. git fetch + merge into upstream branch.

3. Import tarballs, preferably in their original format (bz2/gzip), using pristine-tar.

4. Merge upstream to debian branch. Do necessary fixups and adjustments. At this point, the upstream..debian branch delta is what I want to apply to the upstream release. The reason I need to apply this delta is so I get all generated files into the package that’s built and uploaded.

5. The source package has two functions at this point: Be a starting point for further hacking; and be the source that buildds use to build the binary Debian packages.

   For the former, I need the git repository itself. It is increasingly my preferred form of modification and so I consider it part of the source.

   For the latter, it might be easiest just to ship the orig.tar.{gz,bz2} and the upstream..debian delta. This does require the upstream..debian delta not to change any generated files, which I think is a fair requirement.

I’m not actually sure which source format can give me this. I think maybe the 3.0 (git) format can, but I haven’t played around with it enough to see. I also don’t know if any tools actually support this workflow.

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