so, now that i think i've found where rpmlint-mini upstream pkg is from (should come from) ( https://build.opensuse.org/package/files?package=rpmlint-mini&project=devel%3AopenSUSE%3AFactory%3Arpmlint )
it seems they try to track rpmlint versions, which meego and thus mer haven't been doing. i'm pretty sure rpmlint-mini was broken for mer builds (on obs at least) before i hacked it [MER#169]. i probably made it worse (but unfortunately, that didn't show up in cobs builds). the opensuse mini changelog says it was fixed to support python2.7 at about the same time of: update to desktop-file-utils 0.17 which is the current version of that file in mer (mini-1.1 apparently (spec file), but hard to tell exactly) (mini-1.3 now has 0.19 at suse). something else must be wrong on the mer side. it seems there is an rpmlint-tests pkg (possibly it is only for obs) at https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?package=rpmlint-tests&project=openSUSE%3AFactory that could eliminate problems with lint & lint-mini hacking like i did. it has License: SUSE-Public-Domain sorry for the endless dilution of mer progress that this is causing.
