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Home > Archive > Debian Developers > December 2006 > Two questions on package quality
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Two questions on package quality
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| Nikita V. Youshchenko 2006-12-17, 1:38 am |
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| Bart Martens 2006-12-17, 7:24 am |
| On Sun, 2006-12-17 at 09:48 +0300, Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:
> Hello people.
>
> I was asked to sponsor a package upload.
> I am in doubt on tho following issues, so I/m asking debian-devel for
> comments.
>
>
> 1. Upstream does not provide a manual page for the binary. Packager decided
> to add binary-without-manpage to lintian override file, and Tag:
> no-manual-for-binary to linda override file.
>
> My questions are:
>
> - Is having a manual page for each binary inside package a mandatory
> requirement these days?
See:
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-po...docs.html#s12.1
"If no manual page is available, this is considered as a bug and should
be reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System (the maintainer of the
package is allowed to write this bug report themselves, if they so
desire). Do not close the bug report until a proper man page is
available."
>
> - If binary without manpage is allowed, then what of following 3 statements
> is true:
> (1) binary-without-manpage/no-manual-for-binary should be added, to stop
> complains from lintian/linda,
> (2) binary-without-manpage/no-manual-for-binary should not be added, so
> linda/lintian complains remind that manual page should be written one day,
> (3) or it really does not matter, and I should sign the upload regardless
> of this issue?
Policy does not forbid uploading packages with binaries without
manpages. I don't think that policy states whether or not to add the
overrides.
>
>
> 2. Upstream tarball contains ttf-dejavu font. Linda found that and
> complained. I've asked packager to remove font both from binary package
> and upstream tarball, and to make binary package to depend on ttf-dejavu
> instead.
>
> So .orig.tar.gz got repackaged, and now it differs from upstream.
>
> Should then 'upstream' version string be changed from x.y.z to
> x.y.z.debian? Or not? Or it does not matter?
See:
http://www.debian.org/doc/developer...ckagedorigtargz
Is debian/README.Debian-source added?
Using x.y.z.debian.1 or x.y.z.dfsg.1 or x.y.z.d061217 is required when
the .orig.tar.gz without modifications was already uploaded.
Hope this helps,
Bart Martens
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| Thomas Viehmann 2006-12-17, 7:24 am |
| Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:
> (2) binary-without-manpage/no-manual-for-binary should not be added, so
> linda/lintian complains remind that manual page should be written one day,
Lintian overrides are intended for false positives. Unsing them to
suppress reports of valid packaging problems is completely frivolous and
degrades Debian's overall quality.
> So .orig.tar.gz got repackaged, and now it differs from upstream.
> Should then 'upstream' version string be changed from x.y.z to
> x.y.z.debian? Or not? Or it does not matter?
If you change the orig.tar.gz, the 'upstream' version should indicate
that. You'd probally want to check with the best packaging practices
suggested by the Developer's Reference[1].
Kind regards
T.
1.
http://www.debian.org/doc/developer...ckagedorigtargz
--
Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/
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| |
| Russ Allbery 2006-12-17, 7:33 pm |
| Nikita V Youshchenko <yoush@debian.org> writes:
> 1. Upstream does not provide a manual page for the binary. Packager
> decided to add binary-without-manpage to lintian override file, and Tag:
> no-manual-for-binary to linda override file.
Please don't do this. The lintian tag can be used by others who have more
time to find all binaries without man pages and contribute man pages for
them, and overriding it defeats that purpose.
An override should only be used when what lintian is finding really isn't
a bug for reasons that lintian can't know about (for example, if the man
page is provided by some other package on which that package depends). If
the bug is present and fixing it is just hard, please leave the lintian
message there so that it's documented.
> My questions are:
> - Is having a manual page for each binary inside package a mandatory
> requirement these days?
No, it's not mandatory, it's just a bug.
> 2. Upstream tarball contains ttf-dejavu font. Linda found that and
> complained.
Why?
Sure, duplication of code is a bit annoying, but ttf-dejavu appears to be
a free font, so it doesn't hurt anything that the upstream tarball
contains it. The installed *package* shouldn't duplicate the font and
should instead just depend on the font package it needs (or possibly not
even depend -- if it's only accessing the font via X, it should only
recommend and allow for the possibility that there's an X font server
providing the font). But there's no harm that I can see in leaving the
font in the upstream tarball unless it's under some other non-DFSG-free
license, and you want to avoid repackaging the upstream tarball when you
can help it.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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| |
| Gunnar Wolf 2006-12-22, 1:34 am |
| Nikita V. Youshchenko dijo [Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 09:48:02AM +0300]:
> Hello people.
>
> I was asked to sponsor a package upload.
> I am in doubt on tho following issues, so I/m asking debian-devel for
> comments.
>
>
> 1. Upstream does not provide a manual page for the binary. Packager decided
> to add binary-without-manpage to lintian override file, and Tag:
> no-manual-for-binary to linda override file.
>
> My questions are:
>
> - Is having a manual page for each binary inside package a mandatory
> requirement these days?
It's not mandatory, but strongly prefered. Think about this: How
complex is this binary's user interface? Is it easy enough so that a
user can understand its working without a manpage? Great, then writing
a manpage should prove trivial. Is it so complicated that writing a
manpage is too much work? Well, then how do you expect your users to
understand and use it? 
> 2. Upstream tarball contains ttf-dejavu font. Linda found that and
> complained. I've asked packager to remove font both from binary package
> and upstream tarball, and to make binary package to depend on ttf-dejavu
> instead.
>
> So .orig.tar.gz got repackaged, and now it differs from upstream.
>
> Should then 'upstream' version string be changed from x.y.z to
> x.y.z.debian? Or not? Or it does not matter?
Yes, it should be changed. Not because of the policy, but for
clearness. Of course, document prominently that you are not building
from upstream sources. And, if possible, add a check in debian/rules
so you (or someone else) don't forget to repackage the orig.tar.gz for
the next upstream version. Make the build fail if it has ttf-dejavu.
Greetings,
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF
| |
| Gunnar Wolf 2006-12-22, 1:34 am |
| Russ Allbery dijo [Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 11:20:37AM -0800]:
>
> Why?
>
> Sure, duplication of code is a bit annoying, but ttf-dejavu appears to be
> a free font, so it doesn't hurt anything that the upstream tarball
> contains it. The installed *package* shouldn't duplicate the font and
> should instead just depend on the font package it needs (or possibly not
> even depend -- if it's only accessing the font via X, it should only
> recommend and allow for the possibility that there's an X font server
> providing the font). But there's no harm that I can see in leaving the
> font in the upstream tarball unless it's under some other non-DFSG-free
> license, and you want to avoid repackaging the upstream tarball when you
> can help it.
Oh!
I have to agree with Russ: If the font is free, then just delete it
from the target directory after building. Ship pristine sources.
Greetings,
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF
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