Lintian and Dpkg's :any multiarch acceptor
Hi,
For a brief time between October 1 and October 15, Lintian gave
potentially confusing advice on some build prerequisites. [1]
The :any multiarch acceptor—a rarely used feature some other tools
call the "muliarch qualifier"—was originally not implemented at all
[2] and then implemented incorrectly. [3] Many people do not even know
about the feature. To my knowledge it works now.
Here are two questions:
1. Did anyone find the latest Lintian versions (2.109.0 and up)
confusing as to whether the :any should be included? The material you
would have encountered includes both the context offered by Lintian
(the extra information after the tag) and any relevant tag
descriptions.
2. Should Lintian issue any advice when it sees the :any multiarch
acceptor? If so, for which packages? It might allow maintainers to
undo erroneous advice they may have been given, although many folks
use the feature legitimately, as well.
Thank you!
Kind regards
Felix Lechner
[1] The affected versions were 2.107.0 and 2.108.0.
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/994902
[3] https://bugs.debian.org/995981
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