Hi Paul!
* Paul Tagliamonte <t...@pault.ag>, 2016-03-02, 14:03:
For a while now, the (< ..) and (> ...) Dependency relation has been
discouraged, and not allowed for new packages, since it's confusing (it
actually means <= and >= not >> and <<).
There are only two packages left with this in their source entry. I've
filed two bugs on it, since it's easy to fix.
Lintian knows about 6 of them:
https://lintian.debian.org/tags/obsolete-relation-form-in-source.html
(And there might be more in shlibs and symbol files, which aren't
checked for this problem by Lintian AFAIK.)
Once they're fixed, would it be wise to adjust Policy to disallow this
globally?
Hmm, I could have sworn they are already disallowed. The changelog (for
version 3.9.4) says:
Policy: Prohibit deprecated < and > relations
And the upgrading-checklist says:
The deprecated relations < and > now must not be used.
OTOH, the policy text reads:
The relations allowed are ‘<<’, ‘<=’, ‘=’, ‘>=’ and ‘>>’ for strictly
earlier, earlier or equal, exactly equal, later or equal and strictly
later, respectively. The deprecated forms ‘<’ and ‘>’ were confusingly
used to mean earlier/later or equal, rather than strictly earlier/later,
and must not appear in new packages (though ‘dpkg’ still supports them
with a warning).
So while the text doesn't say that ‘<’ and ‘>’ are allowed, it doesn't
say they are forbidden in non-new packages either.
Can we do s/appear in new packages/be used/ to make it perfectly clear?
--
Jakub Wilk
