la 27.9.2025 klo 11.48 Samuel Thibault ([email protected]) kirjoitti: > Martin-Éric Racine, le sam. 27 sept. 2025 09:41:58 +0300, a ecrit: > > IMHO, in order for Lintian's severity levels to be meaningful in > > determining a package's fitness for inclusion in the Debian > > repository, an Error ought to refer to a MUST[NOT] Policy item, > > I don't think lintian errors are supposed to match policy items. > While lintian fatal errors (used by ftpmaster to reject package) can, > indeed.
Which is precisely the problem. A tag with the severity level Error has consequences, so Lintian should use that severity level sparingly. > I mean, I don't think we'll try to encode in the policy all pieces that > we know are errors that will hit us somehow and we want to highlight to > maintainers. Just taking the first tag I see coming: > > Just taking the first example I can find in the tags: > > Tag: apache2-configuration-files-need-conf-suffix > Severity: error > Check: apache2 > Explanation: The package is installing an Apache2 configuration but that file > does not > end with a '<code>.conf</code>' suffix. Starting with Apache2 2.4 all > configuration > files except module '<code>.load</code>' files need that suffix or are > ignored otherwise. > > This is clearly an error that we want to highlight, while not actually > being a problem for inclusion in debian, so won't be covered by the > policy. Agreed. In fairness, in that particular case, the error is explained by a requirement due to Apache code change. Here are two less obvious ones: N: E: package-installs-apt-sources N: N: Debian packages should not install files under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ or install an /etc/apt/sources.list file. N: N: The selection of installation sources is under the control of the local administrator. Packages are generally not allowed to change the administrator's choices. N: N: As a limited exception for the convenience of administrators, packages whose names end in the clearly named -apt-source are permitted to install such files. N: N: Please refer to the sources.list(5) manual page for details. N: N: Visibility: error N: Show-Always: no N: Check: apt N: Renamed from: package-install-apt-sources N: This is a fairly common case for commercial non-free commercial packages and for local packages deployed across a whole company. The package includes a sources.list.d file to enable fetching updates, and it definitely won't pull in a separate company-apt-source package just to quiet down Lintian. N: E: package-installs-apt-preferences N: N: Debian packages should not install files under /etc/apt/preferences.d/ or install an /etc/apt/preferences file. This directory is under the control of the local administrator. N: N: Package should not override local administrator choices. N: N: Please refer to the apt_preferences(5) manual page for details. N: N: Visibility: error N: Show-Always: no N: Check: apt N: Renamed from: package-install-apt-preferences N: There is an obvious need to prefer customized versions over Debian versions for packages deployed across a whole company. Martin-Éric
