Package: lintian Version: 2.5.49 Hello,
libsystemd-dev currently ships /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsystemd.so -> libsystemd.so.0.17.0 as the development/compiler symlink. This causes a a lintian warning [1] about dev-pkg-without-shlib-symlink, apparently because lintian only checks for the *.so symlink in /usr. It justifies that with the policy 8.4 [2], but contrary to what the lintian help says there is not actually a requirement for the *.so symlink to be in /usr, just that it must exists. The example just happens to have both the library and the .so symlink in /usr as that's certainly the common case. I don't see any technical reason why a *.so symlink in /lib would be bad. It most certainly works (gcc/ld look there), the cost is negligible (just one inode more on the root partition), and with merged /usr it doesn't matter at all. The main reason why it matters is that apparently automake has no declarative method (that we know of) to put the library into /lib but the *.so into /usr/lib. This leads to hacks and hard to maintain/understand code like [3]. If there is a declarative/easy solution I'd be interested in hearing it. But independently of that, I would like to ask you to reconsider this lintian check. Thanks, Martin [1] https://lintian.debian.org/maintainer/pkg-systemd-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org.html#systemd [2] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-sharedlibs.html#s-sharedlibs-dev [3] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/4585/files -- Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)