Bug#984748: gettext is wrongly marked Multi-Arch: foreign
Package: gettext
Version: 0.21-4
Severity: important
The gettext package includes
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/preloadable_libintl.so. This is a shared
library on a public library search path. I looked whether it can be
considered private, but it is documented at
https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Prioritizing-messages.html
and thus must be considered part of the interface. This interface is of
course architecture-dependent and that means that gettext must not be
marked Multi-Arch: foreign as is.
The stupid solution is removing Multi-Arch: foreign. Doing so is
correct, but not useful. A lot of packages will fail to cross build from
source once doing so. The /usr/bin/gettext binary needs to continue
residing in a Multi-Arch: foreign binary package.
The obvious consequence is that preloadable_libintl.so and the gettext
binary must reside in different binary packages. The former should be
located in a Multi-Arch: same marked package. The latter should continue
to reside in a Multi-Arch: foreign marked package.
Of course such a change is entirely inappropriate for inclusion in
bullseye, so the fix will have to wait.
Helmut
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