GSoC status: final summary and comments

[Jordà Polo <jorda@ettin.org>]

I'll try to summarize how things have changed since the last status
report[1], now that GSoC is coming to an end.

Severity/Certainty classification has been completed[2]. The output
format is still the same: Severity/Certainty values are used to get
E|W|I codes, as described in the previous report[1][3]. Additionally,
there is a new experimental output format that displays
Severity/Certainty codes as well. It can be enabled using `--exp-output
format=letterqualifier'.

Another option that has been improved is the selection of tags by
Severity/Certainty. There's a new `--display-level' option that can be
used to select any combination of severities and certainties: it is
possible to add (+), remove (-) or set (=) severity, certainty or
severity/certainty values.

For example, to check serious/certain tags only:
  $ lintian --display-level =serious/certain
			    
Or to remove all wild-guess tags and add minor/possible tags to the
default set:
  $ lintian --display-level -wild-guess --display-level +minor/possible

Other than that, there are still a few things, such as the Source/Ref
field, that could benefit from more discussion here in the list. If the
classification for tags without Ref[4] is to be used, how should it
compare to tags with Ref? Treat keywords as if they were "manuals"?

I implemented a `--display-source' option to restrict displayed tags to
the specified source, but it is somewhat experimental since the possible
changes to Source/Ref haven't been decided yet. It currently works with
tags that have a manual reference only.

Also, how do you think --tags should interact with other options such as
--display-level? If it makes sense to use both options at the same time,
what should be the behaviour, display tags as an AND of all options? Or
does an OR make more sense?


 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-lint-maint/2008/07/msg00239.html
 2. http://ettin.org/tmp/lintian/transtats.out
    http://ettin.org/tmp/lintian/transtats-v.out
    http://ettin.org/tmp/lintian/transtats-vv.out
    http://ettin.org/tmp/lintian/transtats-vvv.out
 3. http://lists.debian.org/debian-lint-maint/2008/07/msg00278.html
 4. http://lists.debian.org/debian-lint-maint/2008/08/msg00096.html