Okay, I am sorry I didn't explain earlier. Basically, one way to
make a Debian package is to create a `debian' subdirectory in the
original source tree of the software you are packaging, and then in
that directory you put a `control' file, which contains package
description and dependencies (among other things, not that important)
and a `rules' file, which is basically a makefile that contains rules
for building the software and creating a filesystem layout for the
Debian package. So when you invoke the Debian package builder from
within the root of your source tree, it expects to find a `debian'
subdirectory containing control, rules, and various other
Debian-specific files that might be needed to create the binary
package.
What I am proposing is to copy the Debian files from the 2.3
package that currently exists, into the main Chicken SVN repository, so
that they can be maintained by interested parties (i.e. me ;-) This
directory will not affect configure; make; make install in any way; if
you are not interested in building Debian packages, you would not even
notice the additional files. The only change I'd like to make to the
main Makefile.am is to amend the `dist' rule to include the `debian'
subdirectory when you run `make dist`.