On 2013-05-28 09:38, Ole Streicher wrote: > Package: lintian Version: 2.5.10.5 Severity: normal Tags: upstream > X-Debugs-CC: [email protected] > > Dear Lintian maintainers, >
Hi, Thanks for your report. > I am currently working on the (re-)packaging of the "IRAF" > astronomical package [1]. This is a huge package with old roots -- > the history goes back to 1981. > > Therefore, the package contains a number of files which are quite > old -- some help files, source examples, documentation etc. date > back to 1983. This leads to the Lintian *error* shown in the > subject. The Lintian explanation even warns "Your package will be > rejected by the Debian archive scripts if it contains a file with > such a timestamp". > I believe this used to be enforced by dak in the old days and the Lintian check was just there to inform people of this before they uploaded. If I understand [3] correctly that now the check has been outsourced to Lintian. > The Debian Policy does not forbid to use old timestaps; in contrast > it encourages to keep them: > > | 4.7 Time Stamps | Maintainers should preserve the modification > times of the upstream | source files in a package, as far as is > reasonably possible. > > In the case of IRAF, it is reasonable to keep the timestamps since > the file age is an indicator to evaluate the contained information > for the user. > > [...] > Seems reasonable. > Since this is a lintian error, I cannot just overwrite it. That is a misunderstanding I would like to clear up. You can override lintian errors (i.e. E tags) in general. It just so happens that our default vendor profile (which is the FTP masters auto-reject tags) will not allow that particular tag to be overridden. The "letter-code" for a given tag is unrelated to whether or not the tag can be overridden (e.g. it is possible for a "pedantic" tag to be marked as "non-overridable" - whether somebody uses that "feature" is a different matter). > In a discussion in debian-mentors [2], I was pointed to bug #218304 > which gives an explanation why this check is in Lintian. However, > an earliest allowed date of 1984 is far too strong for old > packages, and I would ask to set it (as the bug suggests) to > something like 1971, to downgrade it to a warning, or to remove it > completely. > As mentioned, the FTP masters can choose to make it a "non-fatal" auto-reject, in which case you can override the tag[4]. That would immediately solve this problem by allowing you to override the tag. We can also change the rules for the tag; I don't mind doing that either. But as we re-implemented a dak check we did not choose the original date, so I am hesitant to change the cut-off date without the FTP masters confirming it. > Best regards > > Ole > > [1] http://bugs.debian.org/690531 [2] > https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2013/05/msg00298.html > > [3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2013/05/msg00306.html [4] Note that your local installed version of Lintian uses a static copy of the list of auto-reject tags, so your local installed version of Lintian will ignore your override even if dak does not. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
