Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Sean Whitton]

Hello kibi,

On Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 08:41AM -06, Sam Hartman wrote:

>> "Cyril" == Cyril Brulebois  writes:
>
> Cyril> Hi, Felix Lechner  (2021-07-26):
>
> Cyril> cc-ing debian-policy@ for some possible feedback.
>
> Cyril> I'm not sure why we should be spending time tracking down
> Cyril> Policy changes in (source for) udeb packages… so adding then
> Cyril> updating this field to all our packages doesn't seem to do us
> Cyril> any good.
>
> So, it seems fairly obvious to me that Standards-Version is important
> for packages that produce both debs and udebs.
> I'm assuming the focus of our discussion then is on source packages that
> only produce udebs.
> Have I got that right?
>
> By definition, most of the policy that affects binary packages does not
> inherently apply to udebs.  As I understand it, that's kind of the point
> of udebs.

Would you agree with this?  You're only asking to stop seeing warnings
about S-V for source packages which produce only udebs?

-- 
Sean Whitton


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Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Sean Whitton]

Hello,

On Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 04:08AM +02, Cyril Brulebois wrote:

> Whatever happens on the debian-policy front (if anything), I'd prefer if
> lintian would stop emitting those errors on its own. It doesn't have to
> follow the letter of Policy, does it?

No, it doesn't.  While the Lintian maintainers could decide to change
that, it's not been how the project has viewed Lintian in the past.

-- 
Sean Whitton


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Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Cyril Brulebois]

Hi Sean,

Sean Whitton  (2021-08-12):
> On Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 08:41AM -06, Sam Hartman wrote:
> 
> >> "Cyril" == Cyril Brulebois  writes:
> >
> > Cyril> Hi, Felix Lechner  (2021-07-26):
> >
> > Cyril> cc-ing debian-policy@ for some possible feedback.
> >
> > Cyril> I'm not sure why we should be spending time tracking down
> > Cyril> Policy changes in (source for) udeb packages… so adding then
> > Cyril> updating this field to all our packages doesn't seem to do us
> > Cyril> any good.
> >
> > So, it seems fairly obvious to me that Standards-Version is important
> > for packages that produce both debs and udebs.
> > I'm assuming the focus of our discussion then is on source packages that
> > only produce udebs.
> > Have I got that right?
> >
> > By definition, most of the policy that affects binary packages does not
> > inherently apply to udebs.  As I understand it, that's kind of the point
> > of udebs.
> 
> Would you agree with this?  You're only asking to stop seeing warnings
> about S-V for source packages which produce only udebs?

Yes, that looks good to me: source packages (also) producing debs would
deserve a rightful nag.


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (k...@debian.org)
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant


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Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Sean Whitton]

control: clone -1 -2
control: reassign -2 debian-policy
control: retitle -2 Don't require Standards-Version field when only udebs

Hello,

On Thu 12 Aug 2021 at 11:47PM +02, Cyril Brulebois wrote:

> Sean Whitton  (2021-08-12):
>> On Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 08:41AM -06, Sam Hartman wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > So, it seems fairly obvious to me that Standards-Version is important
>> > for packages that produce both debs and udebs.
>> > I'm assuming the focus of our discussion then is on source packages that
>> > only produce udebs.
>> > Have I got that right?
>> >
>> > By definition, most of the policy that affects binary packages does not
>> > inherently apply to udebs.  As I understand it, that's kind of the point
>> > of udebs.
>>
>> Would you agree with this?  You're only asking to stop seeing warnings
>> about S-V for source packages which produce only udebs?
>
> Yes, that looks good to me: source packages (also) producing debs would
> deserve a rightful nag.

I believe that we failed to consider udebs when we made the change which
made S-V mandatory.  I propose we remove the requirement for S-V in
udebs and source packages producing only udebs, until and unless someone
provides a positive argument why S-V ought to be mandatory in these
cases too.

(Cloning the bug but not writing a patch right now; someone else should
feel free to.)

-- 
Sean Whitton


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Bug#992136: Don't require Standards-Version field when only udebs Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Sean Whitton]

Package: debian-policy

[resending to submit@; can't clone merged bug]

Hello,

On Thu 12 Aug 2021 at 11:47PM +02, Cyril Brulebois wrote:

> Sean Whitton  (2021-08-12):
>> On Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 08:41AM -06, Sam Hartman wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > So, it seems fairly obvious to me that Standards-Version is important
>> > for packages that produce both debs and udebs.
>> > I'm assuming the focus of our discussion then is on source packages that
>> > only produce udebs.
>> > Have I got that right?
>> >
>> > By definition, most of the policy that affects binary packages does not
>> > inherently apply to udebs.  As I understand it, that's kind of the point
>> > of udebs.
>>
>> Would you agree with this?  You're only asking to stop seeing warnings
>> about S-V for source packages which produce only udebs?
>
> Yes, that looks good to me: source packages (also) producing debs would
> deserve a rightful nag.

I believe that we failed to consider udebs when we made the change which
made S-V mandatory.  I propose we remove the requirement for S-V in
udebs and source packages producing only udebs, until and unless someone
provides a positive argument why S-V ought to be mandatory in these
cases too.

(Cloning the bug but not writing a patch right now; someone else should
feel free to.)

-- 
Sean Whitton

Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Sam Hartman]

> "Sean" == Sean Whitton  writes:


Sean> On Thu 12 Aug 2021 at 11:47PM +02, Cyril Brulebois wrote:

>> Sean Whitton  (2021-08-12):
>>> On Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 08:41AM -06, Sam Hartman wrote:
>>> 
>>> >
>>> > So, it seems fairly obvious to me that Standards-Version is
>>> important > for packages that produce both debs and udebs.  >
>>> I'm assuming the focus of our discussion then is on source
>>> packages that > only produce udebs.  > Have I got that right?
>>> >
>>> > By definition, most of the policy that affects binary packages
>>> does not > inherently apply to udebs.  As I understand it,
>>> that's kind of the point > of udebs.
>>> 
>>> Would you agree with this?  You're only asking to stop seeing
>>> warnings about S-V for source packages which produce only udebs?
>> 
>> Yes, that looks good to me: source packages (also) producing debs
>> would deserve a rightful nag.

Sean> I believe that we failed to consider udebs when we made the
Sean> change which made S-V mandatory.  I propose we remove the
Sean> requirement for S-V in udebs and source packages producing
Sean> only udebs, until and unless someone provides a positive
Sean> argument why S-V ought to be mandatory in these cases too.

I thought I provided such an argument.
(you trimmed that part of my message when replying).
My argument was roughly that  things like build systems, use of dh,
debian/rules interfaces etc might well need to apply to source packages
producing only udebs.
I think the issues are kind of complex,  and I agree with you that we
didn't consider udebs properly.

I do think though that you ignored the meat of my message and I think it
is worth a bit more consideration than that.

Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Felix Lechner]

Hi Sam,

On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 7:42 AM Sam Hartman  wrote:
>
> I'd need to know more ... in order to have an opinion on
> whether there should be an obligation to comply with these aspects of
> policy.

Thank you for your line of thinking. I totally agree with you.

> 1) I realize i don't entirely know why udebs are udebs not debs.

I would like to understand that too. From what I can tell, setting a
flag in the binary DEBIAN/control file would have been superior since
the formats are actually the same. (Perhaps the custom extension
ensures that APT does not get confused between both kinds of
installables without opening them; in that case I would have chosen a
basename postfix.)

> I'd say that there are significant chunks of policy it would be a great
> idea for d-i packages to comply with.

Are source packages building d-i micro debs exempt from policy? Is
that even possible?

Thank you!

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

Re: Bug#991533: lintian: please forget about required-field Standards-Version for udeb packages

[Felix Lechner]

Hi Sean,

On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 3:37 PM Sean Whitton  wrote:
>
> I believe that we failed to consider udebs when we made the change which
> made S-V mandatory.  I propose we remove the requirement for S-V in
> udebs and source packages producing only udebs, until and unless someone
> provides a positive argument why S-V ought to be mandatory in these
> cases too.

Would you please point to the argument for why d-i micro debs are
exempt from policy, or from a documented Standards-Version, or both?

In addition, it would be helpful to have a short explanation from the
Policy Team as to why Standards-Version is now required.

This primary but brief bug report [1] cited a high prevalence in the
archive, but that was then not a convincing argument, and is even less
so now. Many contributors at the time, myself included, did not
realize that the field was optional. [2] They probably put their faith
in Lintian, which has warned about the field in one way or another
since 5 April 2004—for more than fourteen years before the field
finally became mandatory. Our contributors included the
Standards-Version field through punitive conditioning, and not because
they loved it.

The most curious part? The two bug reports that started it all [3][4]
(and have since been merged) were actually about making Lintian—and by
extension Policy—"less pedantic" yet somehow we ended up with the
opposite result. How did that happen, please?

I later dropped the tag 'ancient-standards-version' from Lintian for
unrelated technical reasons [5] Holger supported it (but did not
instigate it) and I was unaware of his role in the 2018 filings.

The relevant emails from debian-devel are too philosophical about
Lintian's role. [6] They have little bearing on the issue now before
us.

There is, as a side note, another common misconception that Lintian
somehow uses the field to calibrate its output; it does no such thing.

Finally, please allow me to add some powerful statistics to the
record. The tag 'out-of-date-standards-version' currently occurs in
10,813 source packages in the archive (out of about 33,000). [7] It is
an incident ratio of 33%.

That number will never budge, unless someone authorizes the Janitor to
do what most maintainers do, i.e. update the field without great ado.
There are no overrides, which should probably not be legal anyway but
also make no sense. Our group effort to update the field is a hopeless
and demotivating climb.

Thank you!

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/886258
[2] Based on IRC discussions I witnessed at the time.
[3] https://bugs.debian.org/886219
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/886210
[5] 
https://salsa.debian.org/lintian/lintian/-/commit/53ead395a217a8a7969f7f96e3882d2da402c96d
[6] https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2018/01/msg7.html
[7] https://lintian.debian.org/tags/out-of-date-standards-version