Index: devscripts-2.11.7/scripts/debcommit.pl
===================================================================
--- devscripts-2.11.7/scripts/debcommit.pl.orig	2011-02-19 17:23:31.000000000 +0100
+++ devscripts-2.11.7/scripts/debcommit.pl	2011-03-16 09:47:07.033357951 +0100
@@ -584,7 +584,9 @@
     else {
 	die "debcommit: unknown program $prog";
     }
-    die "debcommit: commit failed\n" if (! $action_rc);
+    # mercurial 1.6 returns failure if nothing is to be committed
+    # but we still want to continue with tagging
+    die "debcommit: commit failed\n" if (! $action_rc) && (! $release);
 }
 
 sub tag {