Package: lintian
Version: 2.117.0
Severity: wishlist
X-Debbugs-Cc: invernom...@paranoici.org

Hello!

Lintian has the very useful option -F (--ftp-master-rejects) for running
only the checks that issue tags that result in automatic rejects
from the Debian upload queue.
This is great, but requires a separate invocation of lintian in order
to be used as a QA check.

I mean, if I run lintian without the -F option, I may obtain a number of
tags for the analyzed package, but there does not seem to be any explicit
hint on which of the issued tags are also FTP master auto rejection tags.
In other words, unless I manually compare the tags with the list
of [auto-reject tags], I cannot tell whether any of the tags is deemed
grave enough to warrant an automatic reject from the Debian upload queue,
and which one is.

[auto-reject tags]: <https://ftp-master.debian.org/static/lintian.tags>

Maybe I can explain myself better with an example.

I made the following experiment: I took a package source tree and deliberately
removed its debian/copyright file. I rebuilt the package and checked it with

  $ lintian -viF $CHANGES_FILE
  N:
  E: ${PACKAGE}: no-copyright-file
  N:
  N:   Each binary package has to include a plain file
  N:   /usr/share/doc/*pkg*/copyright
  N:
  N:   Please refer to Copyright information (Section 12.5) in the Debian Policy
  N:   Manual for details.
  N:
  N:   Visibility: error
  N:   Show-Always: no
  N:   Check: debian/copyright
  N:

Good: as expected, lintian found a missing copyright file in the Debian
binary package and complained with the "no-copyright-file" tag, which is
in the list of [auto-reject tags].

But what if I want to check a lot of things in the package (not only
the ones that may result in automatic rejects)?
If this is the case, I can check the package with

  $ lintian -EviIL +pedantic $CHANGES_FILE
  N:
  E: ${PACKAGE}: no-copyright-file
  N:
  N:   Each binary package has to include a plain file
  N:   /usr/share/doc/*pkg*/copyright
  N:
  N:   Please refer to Copyright information (Section 12.5) in the Debian Policy
  N:   Manual for details.
  N:
  N:   Visibility: error
  N:   Show-Always: no
  N:   Check: debian/copyright
  N:
  N:
  W: ${PACKAGE} source: no-debian-copyright-in-source
  N:
  N:   Every package must include the file /usr/share/doc/*pkg*/copyright. A 
copy
  N:   of this file should be in debian/copyright in the source package.
  N:
  N:   Please refer to Copyright information (Section 12.5) in the Debian Policy
  N:   Manual for details.
  N:
  N:   Visibility: warning
  N:   Show-Always: no
  N:   Check: debian/copyright
  N:   Renamed from: no-debian-copyright
  N:

This lintian run issues two tags, but it's not clear which one will result
in an automatic reject, if any.
Since I also ran "lintian -viF" separately, I know that the first one
will result in an automatic reject, while the second one won't.
But in order to be aware of this, I had to run lintian twice
(or manually search the tags in the list of [auto-reject tags], which
is really inconvenient).

I think it would be really great, if lintian highlighted which tags
(among the ones it emits) will also result in an automatic reject.
Maybe with something like:

  N:   Visibility: error
  N:   Show-Always: no
  N:   FTP-master-reject: yes
  N:   Check: debian/copyright

This additional piece of information could be enabled by a dedicated
option.
This new option could perhaps be called "--show-ftp-master-rejects",
or something similar...
Having this option would allow me to run lintian only once, as in:

  $ lintian -EviIL +pedantic --show-ftp-master-rejects $CHANGES_FILE

Wouldn't it be great?   ;-)

I hope you agree with this feature request!
Please implement it.

Thanks for your time and dedication!
Bye.

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