[xml/sgml] Keeping upstream sources in CVS

[Ardo van Rangelrooij]

Rafael Laboissiere (rafael@debian.org) wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am the newest member of the Debian XML/SGML Group at Alioth and I am
> working right now on the docbook2x package together with W. Borgert.  I
> recently adapted this package to use the patch system of cdbs and I am
> wondering whether it makes sense to keep the upstream sources in the
> Alioth's CVS repository.  Supposing that the patch system works properly,
> then it strikes me as a maintenance burden keeping track of the upstream
> sources in our CVS.  What do you think?  How is it done for the other
> packages?

Currently I prefer everything to be in CVS (or SVN for that matter).  Keeping
track of upstream is a no-brainer with cvs-buildpackage's `cvs-upgrade` (or
the SVN equivalent).

But that does in no way imply I'm against patches.  The main problem (but that
could just be a learning issue) I have with patches is maintenance:

 * How do yuo create them?
 * How do you update them?
 * etc.

Of course I know about diff and patch, but using only those tools still seems
rather cumbersome (especially compared against having everything in CVS and
changing what needs to be changed and let cvs-buildpackage do the hard work).

I've not ran into tools yet that can help me here, unless I totally overlooked
them and totally missed the point.  Could someone enlighten me here?

Thanks,
Ardo
-- 
Ardo van Rangelrooij                                     Debian XML/SGML Group
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