Re: Proposed mass-bug filing: missing support for build-arch or build-indep

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Mon, 2021-04-19 at 15:11:21 +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> I would like to propose a mass bug filing on source packages that miss
> support for build-arch or build-indep targets in debian/rules.

Thanks, that'd be great!

> There are currently 411 packages in testing that do not include those
> targets, according to lintian's debian-rules-missing-recommended-target
> tag.  (I will also file a bug against lintian to reflect that those
> targets are now required).
> 
> I do not particularly care about those targets, but I believe that it is
> a good idea to use this old policy change as a way to identify packages
> whose packaging should be upgraded to newer practices.

Currently dpkg contains some backwards compatibility code required to
support the missing targets in some conditions, which I'd really rather
see go away.

Lately Niels Thykier and me have been trying to chip away groups of
packages by making these targets required on specific build conditions,
but I think we run out of easy conditions to key on. So, doing this
mass bug filing to get the last stragglers seems like a good way
forward.

> Any comments?

Given this, I'll probably be planning on removing the compatibility
code and thus making these truly required (so causing FTBFS) during
the dpkg 1.21.x series targeting bookworm.

Thanks,
Guillem