Package: lintian Severity: wishlist Hi,
as alluded to in #935706 [1], I would like to split the diagnostics performed in Lintian checks into two levels. One level states value-neutral facts (such as, a field is present with attached content), while the other generates user alerts (which we call tags). These two diagnostic layers will operate similar to a doctor and a lab: One is a scanning layer that issues hints. It is completely uncontroversial. It works or it does not. The other layer is the expert knowledge; a notice layer that, similar to a doctor, issues alerts for some conditions based on results from the labs. The notices can be customized, but a standard profile, perhaps consisting of multiple components (one of which would be 'policy'), would impose widely accepted alert levels on many conditions indicated by the labs. The key advantages of such a setup are: 1. Detection methods in the lab layer are no longer burdened by community discussions about severity. 2. The lab hints are available separately for tools such as Debian Janitor. 3. Classification tags will eventually be turned off in favor of lab hints, which are more plentiful and offer greater detail. My current branch is based on https://salsa.debian.org/lintian/lintian/-/merge_requests/297 and will be submitted for community review after the 'certainty' concept was removed from Lintian. Please do not confuse this new terminology of 'labs' with the previous name for unpacked packages. Kind regards Felix Lechner [1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=935706#15