get dpkg 1.15 into Ubuntu

[geofft]

We believe dpkg 1.15 fixes an issue with stacked diversions of conffiles ( DebianBug:476899) that came close to biting us during the cluster deployment. The workaround is never to upgrade two packages that stack diversions of the same file at once; since the only setups that currently have stacked diversions are cluster machines and Linerva (which already has this version of dpkg), we can just stagger uploads into production of such pairs of packages by two hours for clusters. However, given how much we use diversions, the issue really should be fixed.

Ubuntu Karmic is currently in a Debian import window, but since there are Ubuntu-specific changes to dpkg, it won't get automatically imported, so we should make sure they merge the new dpkg before the Karmic release. It might be nice to get this in Jaunty, too, if that's easy.

[broder]

I've said this before, I'll say it again:

The Debian Import Freeze has /no/ effect on whether or not Ubuntu will accept syncs and merges from Debian. It /only/ affects automated syncs. Syncs can still be requested by hand, and merges always have to be requested by hand. The Feature Freeze is the real deadline here, and that's August 27.

For more information on how to do merges all by yourself, you want to check out  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/Merging. You also want to be looking at  https://merges.ubuntu.com/d/dpkg/. The REPORT autogenerated by the Merge-o-Matic indicates that there are actually very few conflicts in the merge.

[broder]

   freenode / #ubuntu-devel / cjwatson  04:13  (cjwatson!n=cjwatson@82-69-40-219.d
       ebroder: I have the dpkg merge half-done, just haven't quite got round to
       finishing it
   freenode / #ubuntu-devel / cjwatson  04:13  (cjwatson!n=cjwatson@82-69-40-219.d
       ebroder: still intending to do it

[broder]

 LP:393280 was closed today by cjwatson.