Bug#903158: Multi-Arch: foreign and -dbgsym: too weak dependency

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

Hi,

I have BCC'ed debian-devel on this email to ask for input on this bug 
(#903158) and ask parties that are interested to follow up there.  I am 
considering to remove the dependencies for -dbgsym packages on the 
grounds that:

 1) They are too weak when M-A: foreign is involved and they are not
    always help (see the partial email quote from the bug below)
 2) We now have a debuginfod service, so you do not even have to install
    dbgsym packages anymore (if you configure gdb to use it).  For the
    cases where you do install the dbgsym, you still have to manage
    inter-source dbgsym dependencies manually.

As a debhelper maintainer, I willing to either keep the status quo and 
close the bug as wontfix or close the bug by removing the dependencies. 
If you hoping for another outcome, I expect you to be ready to put the 
effort and patches required to reach the outcome.

Thanks,
~Niels

On Sat, 4 Aug 2018 21:04:59 +0200 Helmut Grohne <helmut@subdivi.de> wrote:
> Hi Niels,
>
> On Sat, Aug 04, 2018 at 08:38:00AM +0000, Niels Thykier wrote:
> > On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 11:40:54 +0300 "Yuriy M. Kaminskiy"
> > <yumkam+debian@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I think (at least, 'Multi-arch: foreign' *and* 'Architecture' != all)
> > > packages should have explicit parent package arch dependency
> > >    Depend: foo:${Arch} (=${binary:Version})
> > > instead of
> > >    Depend: foo (=${binary:Version})
> > > Untested patch against debhelper 11.3.5 attached (please review 
> > > carefully, I'm neither M-A nor debhelper expert).
>
> Yes, this makes somewhat sense.
>
> Personally, I disagree with the Depends though. I've often been in the
> situation of wanting to debug a foreign core file or remotely attaching
> to a process on a different system. These dependencies were not helpful
> at all in these situations. Personally, I'm in favour of making -dbgsym
> packages dependency-less. I acknowledge that others see things
> different.
>
> In any case, we agree that if we want the dependency, then it is
> presently too weak.
>
> [...]