Re: New Build-Options field and build-arch option, please review

[Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>]

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008, Felipe Sateler wrote:
> El 10/07/08 18:02 Raphael Hertzog escribió:
> > Hello,
> >
> > in order to fix #229357 I decided to add a new Build-Options field.
> > I modified Dpkg::BuildOptions to parse this field and DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS.
> > And I added support for a build-arch option, that if present, will let
> > dpkg-buildpackage call debian/rules build-arch and build-indep.
> >
> > It's not obvious that this was the right choice when you think of the
> > currently existing build options but once you start thinking of possible
> > additions (as requested in #489771), it becomes more evident that it makes
> > sense. Even if some build options should really only be used in
> > the field while others should only be used in the environment variable,
> > the possibility to override the former with the latter is nice.
> 
> I'm not really sure this is right. There are two things that we want to do 
> here: declare that a package supports something, and asking the package to do 
> something. This difference is blurred now, and I think it is confusing.

Even if there's only two things, the fact is that the package maintainer
wants not only to decide what is supported but he might also want to
enable some features... if you check the case that I listed above, we also
want to use Build-Options to _enable_ specific hardening measures. Because
the maintainer knows best which hardening measures should be enabled. But
we also want the builder to be able to override them for example to test
if the package now supports a previously disabled hardening measure.

The meaning of each build options is specific to each, there's no global
rule that works for all cases. That's why we have documentation of each
option in dpkg-buildpackage.

> I fear it will give rise to abuses such as setting parallel=n in the control 
> file.

There are dozens of ways to "abuse" any interface if you choose to use
it in a way that contradicts the documentation. But that's not a reason
to limit the flexibility offered by an interface.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

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