Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
* Francesco Poli invernom...@paranoici.org, 2012-09-11, 22:07: Apparently upstream authors do not care about writing a changelog Sadly, this is often the case. and the upstream archive just includes an empty (zero length) file named ChangeLog (probably because GNU autotools create a number of empty files with standard names and the upstream authors didn't care to delete unused ones). In this case, dh_installchangelogs does not install the upstream changelog into the package build directories (and rightfully so, I think). (Right, it would make little sense to install an empty changelog to the binary package.) But lintian complains that the Debian package does not include the upstream changelog. Do you disagree that this is a false positive for the lintian check? Why? To me, the tag servers two purposes: 1) In the rare cases where the changelog exists, but I frogot to install it to the binary package, it reminds me that I should do it. 2) In the more common cases where the changelog does not exist, it reminds me that I should ask upstream to start writing one. So yes, from my perspective it's not a false positive. What should the Debian package maintainer do in this case, in order to please lintian? Lintian is not a diety that you need to please. :) It just gives you hints how to improve your packaging. Also, please keep in this is a tag of severity pedantic. Pedantic tags are Lintian at its most pickiest and include checks for particular Debian packaging styles and checks that many people disagree with. Fake an upstream changelog with information collected elsewhere? That's one possibility. Another is to ask upstream to start writing changelogs. :) Or if you don't feel that benefits of having a changelog justify effort of any of the above, you could live with the tag, possibly adding an override. (Note: this is my personal opinion. I'm not a Lintian maintainer.) Repack the upstream archive just to drop an empty file? No, that wouldn't help. -- Jakub Wilk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
On Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:00:55 +0200 Jakub Wilk wrote: * Francesco Poli invernom...@paranoici.org, 2012-09-11, 22:07: [...] Do you disagree that this is a false positive for the lintian check? Why? To me, the tag servers two purposes: 1) In the rare cases where the changelog exists, but I frogot to install it to the binary package, it reminds me that I should do it. 2) In the more common cases where the changelog does not exist, it reminds me that I should ask upstream to start writing one. This was not my reading of the tag description... It says: N:The package does not install an upstream changelog file. If upstream N:provides a changelog, it should be accessible as N:/usr/share/doc/pkg/changelog.gz. Then it discusses the unclear case of multiple binary packages (which is not my concern here) and finally refers me to Policy 12.7 (Changelog files). The Policy again explains that If an upstream changelog is available, it should be accessible [...], but does not mandate anything for the cases where no upstream changelog is available. Asking upstream to start writing a changelog is of course a nice idea, but the Policy does not require Debian package maintainers to do so. Hence, I didn't interpret the tag as you seem to do. My reading was that lintian was telling me that an upstream changelog exists, but it somehow failed to be installed in the Debian binary package. But this was not the case. So yes, from my perspective it's not a false positive. [...] (Note: this is my personal opinion. I'm not a Lintian maintainer.) [...] Well, I'll leave this to the lintian maintainers to decide. If my interpretation is the intended one, then I think that this lintian check should be triggered *only* when a non-empty upstream changelog is indeed present in the upstream source archive, but is not properly installed in the Debian binary package. On the other hand, if Jakub's interpretation is the intended one, then I think that the tag description should say something about the absent upstream changelog case, before discussing the multiple binary package case. Something along the lines of: N:If upstream does not provide any meaningful changelog, you should get N:in touch with them and persuade them to start providing one. This is my own take on this issue. I hope it helps to improve lintian... Bye. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpCo2qHNa009.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:34:35 +0100 Sandro Tosi wrote: On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 01:31, Russ Allbery r...@debian.org wrote: Sandro Tosi mo...@debian.org writes: Hello, since dh_installchangelog skips empty upsteam changelog files, so the pedantic tag should be not shown in that situation. Hello, I've just been hit by this bug. I was running lintian on a package where the upstream changelog is present but empty and I failed to understand how I could fix the problem with the package, until I realized that the lintian complaint was actually a false positive. I checked the list of open bug reports for lintian and found that the issue has already been reported. I hope this bug may be fixed soon (well, of course, not during a freeze, but, soon after the release of wheezy!). I don't see any good way for Lintian to do that. It's checking the binary package to see if an upstream changelog was installed and doesn't know what was in the source package (and a source package check wouldn't know whether an upstream changelog was being installed or not). Not a problem, feel free to close or wontfix :) No, please! Don't close it as invalid and don't tag it wontfix! Please, pretty please, implement the necessary check to exclude this kind of false positives... The blocking bug (#513663) is long fixed now. Hence, it is my understanding that the needed architecture is in place. Thanks for your time! Bye. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpQzx6w2f3ek.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
* Francesco Poli invernom...@paranoici.org, 2012-09-11, 19:51: since dh_installchangelog skips empty upsteam changelog files, so the pedantic tag should be not shown in that situation. Hello, I've just been hit by this bug. I was running lintian on a package where the upstream changelog is present but empty and I failed to understand how I could fix the problem with the package, until I realized that the lintian complaint was actually a false positive. Why was it a false positive? Was it because it was the very first upstream release, and as such didn't have any changes any yet? In my experience, empty changelog is a very weak indicator of such situations. -- Jakub Wilk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:32:43 +0200 Jakub Wilk wrote: * Francesco Poli invernom...@paranoici.org, 2012-09-11, 19:51: since dh_installchangelog skips empty upsteam changelog files, so the pedantic tag should be not shown in that situation. Hello, I've just been hit by this bug. I was running lintian on a package where the upstream changelog is present but empty and I failed to understand how I could fix the problem with the package, until I realized that the lintian complaint was actually a false positive. Why was it a false positive? Was it because it was the very first upstream release, and as such didn't have any changes any yet? No, it was not the first upstream release. Apparently upstream authors do not care about writing a changelog and the upstream archive just includes an empty (zero length) file named ChangeLog (probably because GNU autotools create a number of empty files with standard names and the upstream authors didn't care to delete unused ones). In this case, dh_installchangelogs does not install the upstream changelog into the package build directories (and rightfully so, I think). But lintian complains that the Debian package does not include the upstream changelog. Do you disagree that this is a false positive for the lintian check? Why? What should the Debian package maintainer do in this case, in order to please lintian? Fake an upstream changelog with information collected elsewhere? Repack the upstream archive just to drop an empty file? Could you please clarify? Thanks. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpnnSCft4AHs.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
Package: lintian Version: 2.2.0 Severity: minor Hello, since dh_installchangelog skips empty upsteam changelog files, so the pedantic tag should be not shown in that situation. Thanks, Sandro -- System Information: Debian Release: 5.0 APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 2.6.25-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages lintian depends on: ii binutils2.18.1~cvs20080103-7 The GNU assembler, linker and bina ii diffstat1.46-1 produces graph of changes introduc ii dpkg-dev1.14.24 Debian package development tools ii file4.26-2 Determines file type using magic ii gettext 0.17-6 GNU Internationalization utilities ii intltool-debian 0.35.0+20060710.1Help i18n of RFC822 compliant conf ii libdigest-sha-perl 5.47-1 Perl extension for SHA-1/224/256/3 ii libipc-run-perl 0.82-1 Perl module for running processes ii libparse-debianchan 1.1.1-2 parse Debian changelogs and output ii libtimedate-perl1.1600-9 Time and date functions for Perl ii liburi-perl 1.37+dfsg-1 Manipulates and accesses URI strin ii man-db 2.5.2-3 on-line manual pager ii perl [libdigest-sha 5.10.0-19Larry Wall's Practical Extraction lintian recommends no packages. Versions of packages lintian suggests: pn binutils-multiarchnone (no description available) ii libtext-template-perl 1.44-1.2 Text::Template perl module ii man-db2.5.2-3on-line manual pager -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
Sandro Tosi mo...@debian.org writes: Hello, since dh_installchangelog skips empty upsteam changelog files, so the pedantic tag should be not shown in that situation. I don't see any good way for Lintian to do that. It's checking the binary package to see if an upstream changelog was installed and doesn't know what was in the source package (and a source package check wouldn't know whether an upstream changelog was being installed or not). -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#513544: lintian: pedantic 'no-upstream-changelog' should check if upsteam changelog is not empty
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 01:31, Russ Allbery r...@debian.org wrote: Sandro Tosi mo...@debian.org writes: Hello, since dh_installchangelog skips empty upsteam changelog files, so the pedantic tag should be not shown in that situation. I don't see any good way for Lintian to do that. It's checking the binary package to see if an upstream changelog was installed and doesn't know what was in the source package (and a source package check wouldn't know whether an upstream changelog was being installed or not). Not a problem, feel free to close or wontfix :) I think situation where the source package is at hand (like lintian-ing the .changes file) so that a empty file check can be performed. But I even understand that this could not fit the lintian check architecture. Cheers, -- Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu) My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/ Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
