On Mon, Oct 05, 2020 at 04:22:17PM +0100, Simon McVittie wrote: > Package: lintian > Version: 2.97.0 > Severity: normal > > The new breakout-link tag (warning about symlinks escaping from /usr/lib) > seems to have a lot of false positives. > > In particular, the pattern I'm interested in for this bug report > is that some upstream packages expect to be installed in a non-FHS > layout where a single directory mixes executables with libraries, > or mixes architecture-dependent executables and libraries with > architecture-independent data, or mixes configuration with static > files. This is very, very common in games, which are typically designed > to installed in an arbitrary relocatable directory of the user's choice. > It's also done in larger packages like OpenJDK and LibreOffice, in > GNUstep apps (each of which is designed to be self-contained directory), > and in many other packages. > > The long-standing convention for dealing with these packages in Debian has > been to put their non-FHS tree in a subdirectory of /usr/lib. Files that > would ordinarily be valid to appear in /usr/lib are shipped there as > regular files, while files that would not be valid in /usr/lib are shipped > as symlinks to a regular file in another location. For example: > > usr/lib/openarena-server/baseoa/etc/openarena-server -> > etc/openarena-server > usr/lib/openarena-server/baseoa/pak0.pk3 -> > usr/share/games/openarena/baseoa/pak0.pk3 > > Meanwhile, system integration (for example making the application appear > in /usr/share/applications and in /usr/bin) is done either via wrapper > scripts, or by moving or symlinking individual integration files. > > I don't think it's a good idea to encourage maintainers to patch these > packages to use a FHS layout if their upstream would not accept that change. > Unnecessary delta from upstream increases the number of bugs that exist > only in Debian, leading to strained relations between upstreams and > downstreams; and changing the layout has no real benefit for our users in > cases like this, because we're installing the real files (such as > /etc/openarena-server/server.cfg and .../baseoa/pak0.pk3) in the locations > they should normally have. > > The tag description says: > > At least for /usr/lib, it is usually an error and may confuse > some tools. > > [citation needed]? Which tools does it confuse, and which bugs does this > check catch? I don't think setting the level to warning is justified > unless a check genuinely prevents identifiable bugs.
I fully agree with Simon. The rationale for this warning is lacking and there is no consensus in Debian this is a problem. Indeed I would expect the consensus is that it is correct in a lot of common situation. Tools that are still confused by symlinks in 2020 need to be fixed, not the other way around. Cheers, -- Bill. <[email protected]> Imagine a large red swirl here.
