Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
On Mon, 25 May 2009, Serafeim Zanikolas wrote: On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 06:10:03PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: I guess I'm not understanding why you don't just make bogofilter depend on bogofilter-common as well. What's the drawback? None really, but it would seem as if we're making a technical decision for a bureaucratic reason, which doesn't seem right. The technical reason to do it this way is that it makes it much easier to test in lintian or similar; you just need to examine the target of the symlink and see if the package depends on the package named in the symlink target. [I'm not really sure where the bureaucracy is here.] Don Armstrong -- No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white. -- Sir Karl Popper _Logic of Scientific Discovery_ http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
Serafeim Zanikolas ser...@hellug.gr writes: On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 06:10:03PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: I guess I'm not understanding why you don't just make bogofilter depend on bogofilter-common as well. What's the drawback? None really, but it would seem as if we're making a technical decision for a bureaucratic reason, which doesn't seem right. Feel free to close the bug, I just thought I'd give it a try anyway. Well, Don already mentioned one technical reason (it's a lot easier to check automatically using the current way). The underlying technical reason is that at the moment we don't require programs that are extracting copyright information to have to do more than look at one level of dependencies. They don't have to have a full dependency resolution engine to follow multiple levels. On a procedural level, while I don't want to keep doing something dumb just because it's what we're currently doing, I think a mild bias in favor of not changing things is good for stability. So I think the burden of evidence lies with the change, although that burden may not be particularly high. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
On Sun, 2009-05-24 at 16:07 +0200, Serafeim Zanikolas wrote: Policy allows a package's doc directory to be a symlink to another package's doc directory, as long as they are: - from the same source package and - the first package directly depends upon the second I propose that that the second requirement is relaxed to allow for an indirect dependency of the first package to the second (as long as all packages involved have the same source). Hi, I don't like the idea of muddying policy with this sort of convoluted exception, and I can't see the value of it from a technical perspective. Regards, Andrew McMillan. Andrew @ McMillan .Net .NZ Porirua, New Zealand http://andrew.mcmillan.net.nz/Phone: +64(272)DEBIAN Necessity is the mother of documentation -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
Package: debian-policy Version: 3.8.1.0 Severity: minor Tags: patch Policy allows a package's doc directory to be a symlink to another package's doc directory, as long as they are: - from the same source package and - the first package directly depends upon the second I propose that that the second requirement is relaxed to allow for an indirect dependency of the first package to the second (as long as all packages involved have the same source). Please see attached patch for a possible wording. Cheers, Serafeim -- System Information: Debian Release: squeeze/sid APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=el_GR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash debian-policy depends on no packages. debian-policy recommends no packages. Versions of packages debian-policy suggests: pn doc-base none (no description available) -- no debconf information --- policy-orig.txt 2009-05-23 20:09:11.0 +0200 +++ policy.txt 2009-05-23 20:09:01.0 +0200 @@ -6036,7 +6036,10 @@ `/usr/share/doc/package' may be a symbolic link to another directory in `/usr/share/doc' only if the two packages both come from the same - source and the first package Depends on the second.[2] + source and the first package Depends on the second.[2] It is also + acceptable that the first package has an indirect dependency on the + second package, through one or more other packages, as long as all + involved packages come from the same source. Former Debian releases placed all additional documentation in `/usr/doc/package'. This has been changed to
Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
On Sun, 24 May 2009, Serafeim Zanikolas wrote: Policy allows a package's doc directory to be a symlink to another package's doc directory, as long as they are: - from the same source package and - the first package directly depends upon the second I propose that that the second requirement is relaxed to allow for an indirect dependency of the first package to the second (as long as all packages involved have the same source). I don't see the benefit of this. If you're going to have a symlink to the doc directory of another package, you should have a dependency on the package that provides the doc directory. [It makes it much easier to test in lintian, and it makes it much less likely to result in errors down the line where the package the dependency path goes through drops the dependency.] Don Armstrong -- CNN/Reuters: News reports have filtered out early this morning that US forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested, Al-Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator. US President George W Bush argued that this was clear and overwhelming evidence that Iraq indeed possessed weapons of math instruction. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
Serafeim Zanikolas ser...@hellug.gr writes: Policy allows a package's doc directory to be a symlink to another package's doc directory, as long as they are: - from the same source package and - the first package directly depends upon the second I propose that that the second requirement is relaxed to allow for an indirect dependency of the first package to the second (as long as all packages involved have the same source). Why do you feel this would be a good change? I don't think I understand what would be gained that would be worth making a change, since we're still talking about a set of packages all built from the same source. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/package to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir
Serafeim Zanikolas ser...@hellug.gr writes:
Perhaps a specific example might clarify the issue.
- bogofilter (dummy package that only contains a symlink to
/usr/share/doc/bogofiflter-common) depends on bogofilter-db
- bogofilter-db is a virtual package provided by bogofilter-{bdb,sqlite,etc},
- bogofilter-{bdb,sqlite,etc} depend on bogofilter-common
The bogofilter binary package violates policy in that it symlinks a
directory from a package it doesn't depend on directly, even though
it's guaranteed that the /usr/share/doc/bogofilter symlink will always
be correct. The proposed policy change would not require bogofilter to
depend directly on -common, as the reason to do so is satisfied via an
indirect dependency.
I guess I'm not understanding why you don't just make bogofilter depend
on bogofilter-common as well. What's the drawback?
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
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