Re: Summary of current experimental tags

[Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org>]

* Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>, 2013-04-07, 17:33:
> * python(3)-depends-but-no-python(3)-helper 2.5.4 (Nov 2011)
>  - In total, some 40-46 cases
>  - both tags are "serious/possible" (E)
>  - I am considering to promote to "non-experimental".

I was going to propose to un-experimental this one, too. Unfortunately, 
a few of these tags are false positive. This is because people do crazy 
things like this:

WITH_PYTHON2 = $(shell test -f /usr/bin/dh_python2 && echo "--with python2")
%:
	dh $@ ${WITH_PYTHON2}

Lintian has of course no way of knowing with will WITH_PYTHON2 expand 
to... But perhaps in these crazy cases people should just add overrides. 
(FTR, this is tracked as #659335.)

> * package-contains-no-arch-dependent-files
>  - some 250 tags in ~125 packages
>  - I don't think it copes with "pkg [linux-any]" cases
>    (i.e. where the package is arch:any to allow architecture dependent
>     dependencies).

Yeah, there are some false-positives of this type:
build-essential, g++-mulitlib, ... probably more.

Other reasons to make a package arch:any:
1) arch:all packages can't have (= ${binary:Version}) dependencies on 
arch:any packages.
2) Unless you mark the arch:all package MA:foreign (which is not always 
possible), then it's considered as native for the purposes of dependency 
resolution. This is sometimes undesirable.

>  - It is minor/possible (I)
>  - Maybe promote to non-experimental
>    (possibly with a s/possible/wild-guess/)

I'd rather keep it experimental, but I don't have strong feelings about 
this.

> * package-contains-broken-symlink
>  - nearly 12k tags in < 1000 packages
>  - people seem to symlink the "weirdest" of things.
>  - I am no so certain that maintaining the whitelist we are doing now
>    will remain feasible.

It's probably not.

>  - it is normal/possible (W)

Certainty is inflated here; it should be wild-guess.

>  - I am considering to drop it.

I think we should drop it once #699059 is fixed.

> * duplicate-files
>  - Some 35k tags in < 1000 packages
>  - a lot of that is caused by doxygen (etc.)
>  - will possibly be preceived as a lot of busy work by maintainers

The tag helped me to greatly reduce a binary package size once, but most 
of the time my reaction to it is "meh, I don't care".

>  - dedup.debian.net is (likely to become) a good replacement for this.
>  - I am considering to drop it.

I don't mind dropping it.

> * embedded-pear-module

No opinion about this. :)

> * shlib-calls-exit
>  - Some 2300 tags in < 1000 packages
>  - Russ suggested that this tag should be dropped[2].
>  - it is wishlist/possible (I)

It's been almost always true positive for me, so I'd prefer if we kept 
it.

--
Jakub Wilk