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Groups > linux.debian.bugs.dist > #1291213

Bug#976823: uscan: have an official way to document that there's no upstream source anymore

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On Fri, 10 Apr 2026 18:16:59 +0200 Agustin Martin <agmartin@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 08, 2020 at 11:36:19AM +0100, Raphaël Hertzog wrote:
> > Package: devscripts
> > Version: 2.20.5
> > Severity: wishlist
> > User: devel@kali.org
> > Usertags: origin-kali
> > X-Debbugs-Cc: jelmer@debian.org
> >
> > There are cases where there's no upstream source anymore so we have
> > nothing to put into debian/watch (either because there never was a real
> > upstream or because the upstream repository disappeared). At the same
> > time, the lack of debian/watch might just mean that someone forgot to
> > create the file. So what I usually do is that I create a debian/watch
> > file documenting the fact that I can't put anything in it... but the
> > result is that uscan will fail and tools like the janitor bot that try to
> > import a new upstream release will log an error, drawing the attention of
> > developers on this specific package
...
> > It would be better if there was a way to document that there's no upstream
> > source and let uscan succeed while printing a warning. Maybe with a
> > specific optional flag say "no-upstream".
> >
> Hi, Raphaël
>
> With debian/watch v5 this is partially (but only partially) done,
>
> $ cat debian/watch
> Version: 5
> Untrackable: Testing that this is untrackable.
>
> $ uscan --report ; echo $?
> uscan warn: Untrackable project: Testing that this is untrackable.
> 1
>
> So exit status is not what I would have expected (that is why I am not
> closing this bug report).
>
> By the way, for some of my packages I am using the fake packages hack
> by Eriberto Mota,
>
> https://people.debian.org/~eriberto/#fake-packages
>
> It has been very useful for my packages in the absence of a better
> mechanism. It would be nice if something like this is implemented in uscan
> itself.

Hi,

I have been playing with a template for uscan that tries to do what
Eriberto hack does (cc'ing Eriberto in case he wants to add
something). It is sort of hackish, there should be no need of
connecting to an external page to have this work, but I am attaching
it as a proof of concept. I kept the '||=' to help with testings, but
they should probably be just '='.

It can be used with something like

$ cat debian/watch
Version: 5
Template: Untrackable
Reason: norelease
# Forced-Version: 0.Custom-Excuse

This does now show info with "uscan --report" and uscan returns 1; but
I expect it to work similarly to Eriberto's hack.

Hope this is useful in some way.

-- 
Agustin

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Bug#976823: uscan: have an official way to document that there's no upstream source anymore Agustin Martin <agmartin@debian.org> - 2026-04-27 18:10 +0200
  Bug#976823: uscan: have an official way to document that there's no upstream source anymore Agustin Martin <agmartin@debian.org> - 2026-04-29 11:40 +0200

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