Re: Transition to gnat-4.6

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

Nicolas Boulenguez <nicolas.boulenguez@free.fr> writes:

> On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 07:37:17AM -0400, Stephen Leake wrote:
>
>> Proposed rule:
>>     If a binary package build-depends on gnat (ie, it is an Ada
>>     package), and the package name changes only by incrementing a number
>>     (ie it is an aliversion change [ref debian ada policy]), then it is
>>     not considered a new package for the upload queues.
>
> If you do not extend the exception to the soversion, it is seldom
> useful. It would not ease this gnat upgrade, as both versions change
> in this case. If you do, allmost any shared library maintainer could
> formulate the same claim.

Yes; perhaps they should. That would be consistent with what I'm
suggesting, and make it easier to allow the additional aliversion rule
for Ada.

This means that under the current rules Debian Maintainers cannot
maintain libraries, only applications. Is that limitation deliberate? I
don't recall seeing it mentioned anywhere.

> Any maintainer can make his package Build-Depend on gnat, or imitate a
> shared library to fake whatever automatic test I can imagine.

I think you are implying that Bad Things Can Happen if this rule is
accepted; can you be more explicit?

For example, how would a malicious DM get malicious code uploaded by
this rule, that they can't do now?

-- 
-- Stephe