Having become fed up with dealing with rpmbuild, spec files, debian control files, dh_make, debuild, and the whole lot, I automated my way back to sanity.

The result is a tool I call "fpm" which aims to help you make and mangle packages however you choose, all (ideally) without having to care about the internals of your particular native package format.

...

With FPM, you can specify dependencies, architecture, maintainer, etc. All from a simple command line, and never forcing you to learn the pain and suffering that can come with rpm spec files or debian package building.