Package: roxen4-doc Version: 4.0.325-2 Severity: grave Justification: renders package unusable (fails to install)
roxen4-doc failed to install, complaining that it did not know what database to contact. That sounded like obvious nonsense (I was installing the *documentation*, not a database client, and besides it never asked me to install or select any database whatsoever). So I investigated further. Here is the bunch of problems I found: 1. The packager has chosen to provide the documentation in the form of a database file, which can only be read with special software. This is unacceptable in principle and in practice: Documentation must be readable (and installable if in its own package) seperately from the act of running the software being documented. It must be possible to read the documentation of various packages without having to run a different and special program for each. Debian contains and supports plenty of file formats for this, a LOT of justification is needed to use a different format in the binary .deb (except a redundant copy of the same text). 2. Launching or contacting daemons etc. from postinst in unexpected ways and without warning (and without asking for positive user consent) is extremely bad behaviour in terms of security and privacy. This alone could justify a grave bug on security grounds. 3. On top of all this, the package does not declare a dependency on the packages it needs to even install, and displays an incorrect error message when it sees that a different package (roxen4) is not configured. I recommend that this package is completely redone or removed from the archive. *nothing* was apparently done right. -- System Information: Debian Release: 3.1 APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.10jbj3.2.8 Locale: LANG=en_DK.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_DK.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
