Re: New perl package
torin@daft.com writes ("New perl package"):
...
> perl: Larry Wall's Practical Extracting and Report Language.
> perl_suid: Runs setuid perl scripts.
> perl_debug: Allow debugging perl scripts (and perl).
Three things regarding your packaging arrangement. You're not going
to like the second, I'm afraid ...
Firstly: a few months ago we decided to phase out `_' in package
names. Many of the schemes being proposed for parseable filenames
rely on not having `_' in package names (we can't change all the
deployed `-'s to `-'s without major grief). This wasn't documented in
the Guidelines or enforced by dpkg-deb, but it will be RSN (dpkg
1.1.6). So, could you please change from `_' to `-'.
Secondly: I don't particularly like the way you've split the packages.
(a) We need a `perl binary only' (and perhaps the more essential
library files) package for the base disks. That has to be marked
Essential &c. (b) Can't we then make the rest of the installation a
little less granular - have only one or perhaps two other packages ?
(c) You say ...
> * Added the dosuid define to Configure so that perl would once
> again create a suidperl. It was dropped from the upstream
> release. There is a question in the postinst that asks if you
> want it or not.
Does the answer to this question get kept anywhere ? In any case,
(i) isn't a separate package the right thing here but (ii) can't we
review the code to make sure it's secure - surely that can't be too
hard ? We just need to make sure that suidperl can't be used if there
are no suid perl scripts.
Thirdly:
...
> * Added tcsh as well as c-shell to the dependency list. I'll
> remove the tcsh once c-shell is provided by it.
...
> * Changed the tcsh dependency to c-shell.
> * Added dependency on tcsh until the globbing works without
> calling csh.
Please don't do this ! Configure it to think that csh isn't
available. You can't make an vital package like Perl depend on an
optional one like csh ...
Ian.
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