Bug#626476: lintian: reduce dpkg-dev to Suggests
On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 11:45:03PM +0200, Niels Thykier wrote:
> On 2011-05-12 23:00, Colin Watson wrote:
> > Hmm. I kicked this around with some of my team. Here are a few
> > alternatives, all a bit grotty in one way or another:
> >
> > * Split lintian into two binary packages, one of which only supports
> > checking binary packages, and the other of which (still called
> > 'lintian') supports everything and depends on the first.
> >
> > * Reimplement the small number of checks we consider for this use case
> > in aptdaemon or somewhere else.
> >
> > * Split out dpkg-source from dpkg-dev.
>
> An alternative to this is to use libdpkg-perl to do the unpacking; that
> would save some depends of dpkg-dev, assuming the libdpkg-perl API is
> stable here.
While I agree that this is a further interesting alternative over and
above those I listed, /usr/share/doc/libdpkg-perl/README.api says:
What: libdpkg-perl (perl modules)
Status: stable
Description:
Among the perl modules provided by libdpkg-perl, you can safely rely on
those that have $VERSION set to 1.00 (or higher). Note however that the
API is defined by what's documented in the corresponding manual pages and
nothing more. You can't assume anything else based on what you read in
the source code. If you feel the need for further refinements in the
documented API, don't hesitate to file a wishlist bug against
libdpkg-perl.
.
In case of API-breaking changes, the major number in $VERSION will be
increased. For API extensions, the minor number will be increased.
The necessary module is /usr/share/perl5/Dpkg/Source/Package.pm, which
has $VERSION set to 0.01 and has no manual page, so according to the
documentation we are not allowed to rely on that being stable yet.
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]
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