Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

[Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>]

Yeah, well...

Two hours ago I discovered that recent version of dpkg (1.10.10) doesn't
update the Priority and Section fields in its database when performing
package upgrade. Then I found this bugreport.

Since there was no solution submitted here, I began to fix it myself.

Then I found this in include/dpkg-db.h:
enum parsedbflags {
  [...]
  pdb_weakclassification=004, /* Ignore priority/section info if we already have any   */
  [...]
};

Oh, what a surprise! Seems that dpkg explicitely, intentionally decides
not to update these fields.

Then I edited main/processarc.c line 193, removed the
pdb_weakclassification flag from the parsedb() call. Recompiled dpkg, and
wow, it works! It updates the Priority and Section fields!

Took no more than 2 hours for me, despite that I'm completely new to
dpkg's source, and in the mean time I watched TV, ytalked to a friend and
did some other work as well.

<sorry but I cannot resist>

During more than 3 and a half years none of the Debian developers said
even a single word about this bug here. There are many of other bugs as
well, some reported by me, they didn't even get commented in nearly one
year.

This misfeature was explicitely inserted by someone developing dpkg, he
definitely thought this behaviour was better, and left us the choice to do
a one-line fix against this brain-damaged behavior (which I'd rather
called "bug" if it wasn't clear from the source that this behavior is
intentional), but still no-one could say a single word (not even a "hey,
dude, it's a feature!") here in the bug tracker.

If anyone is interested, this is why I do not use Debian and will most
likely never do. There's only one thing I can't understand: why are most
of the Debian users and developers so extremely fscking proud of their
system???

</sorry but I cannot resist>