Bug#994275: Draft resolution for reverting changes in debianutils

[David Bremner <david@tethera.net>]

Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> writes:

> 1. Offer advice:

>    The debianutils package must continue to provide the which(1) program
>    until a compatible utility is available in a package that is at least
>    transitively essential in Debian 12.

Is it really advice if we say "must"?

> 2. Overrule maintainer of debianutils:
>
>    The which(1) program must not print any deprecation warnings.

I remain to be convinced on this point. If I understand the issue
correctly the problem is with autopkgtests failing because they were not
expecting output on stderr. I don't think people are really entitled to
expect which(1) to never print to stderr. Even when debian-policy
recommended 'which' it apparently recommended redirecting stderr.

I also don't see failures of autopkgtests as directly impacting users in
the same way a failure to build or a failure to install does.

I understand that people find the message annoying, and perhaps not that
useful, but I don't think that rises the level justifying overriding a
maintainer.