/me on the Relevance of CDBS

Whoa, people discussing about CDBS, I can't help joining them.

My position: I love CDBS. I started switching my packages to CDBS an year ago or so and nowadays I've almost finished.

I understand that people not knowing CDBS might have trouble fixing bugs in my packages, but that's life and it's the same as having to fix a bug in a software written in a programming language you are not fond of. It's just a matter of setting a minimal standard: today people in the NM have to learn debhelper, tomorrow they will have to learn CDBS too.

I think it's worth the effort, because CDBS, if used extensively in our archive, has the benefit of providing a single place where to massively make changes to potentially all packages of the archive. That's a huge win for QA in Debian. The same does debhelper, but it only takes care of technical aspects in the packaging process while CDBS also takes care of behavioural aspects.

Of course CDBS has drawbacks and nuisances (the available hooks for examples are not properly standardized nor documented IMO), but I think it's a step in the right direction. In Debian we should push more and more toward the possibility of making changes in a centralized/batch manner, so that when maintainers tend to get MIA we have a quick and easy way to take over their unfulfilled duties.

Collaborative maintenance is a social step in that direction, CDBS is a technical one.