Bug#522613: lintian: false positive package-lacks-versioned-build-depends-on-debhelper 6 (5.0.44 is new enough)

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> writes:

> Lintian reports problems with debhelper dependency when using "6" in
> compat and build-depending on debhelper version 5.0.44.
>
> Debhelper itself claims support for compat version 6 in its changelog
> entry for version 5.0.44, which is the reason this version was used in
> CDBS dependency resolving.

I think this is wrong and CDBS should be fixed.  There is clear
documentation in the debhelper man page:

       Once your package uses debhelper to build, be sure to add debhelper
       to your Build-Depends line in debian/control. You should
       build-depend on a version of debhelper equal to (or greater than)
       the debhelper compatibility level your package uses. So if your
       package used compatibility level 7:

         Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7)

5.0.44's changelog says:

  * Introducing beginning of v6 mode.

and 6.0.0 says:

  * debhelper v6 mode is finalised and is the new recommended compatibility
    level.

What this means is that all v6 features were *not* available in 5.0.44;
5.0.44 was still being developed at that time.  Therefore, if you declare
compat level 6 and only have debhelper 5.0.44 installed, your package may
not build or may produce broken results.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>