Bug#758425: lintian: add a check for outdated version constraints

[Johannes Schauer <j.schauer@email.de>]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.25
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

Lintian could check if any dependency on binary packages has an outdated
version constraint. If the outdated version constraint is attached to an
essential package, then the dependency can be dropped completely. This
will then avoid useless triggering of autopkgtests for those packages.
If the dependency is not essential then the version constraint can be
removed. The check whether a version is outdated can easily be done by
having a data file with package name and its version in oldstable. If
the version constraint points to a version prior to oldstable then the
constraint can be dropped or the dependency dropped if it is essential.

cheers, josch

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.14-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii  binutils                       2.24.51.20140617-1
ii  bzip2                          1.0.6-5
ii  diffstat                       1.58-1
ii  file                           1:5.19-1
ii  gettext                        0.18.3.2-3
ii  hardening-includes             2.5
ii  intltool-debian                0.35.0+20060710.1
ii  libapt-pkg-perl                0.1.29+b1
ii  libarchive-zip-perl            1.37-2
ii  libclass-accessor-perl         0.34-1
ii  libclone-perl                  0.37-1
ii  libdpkg-perl                   1.17.13
ii  libemail-valid-perl            1.194-1
ii  libfile-basedir-perl           0.03-1
ii  libipc-run-perl                0.92-1
ii  liblist-moreutils-perl         0.33-2
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-1
ii  libtext-levenshtein-perl       0.09-1
ii  libtimedate-perl               2.3000-2
ii  liburi-perl                    1.62-1
ii  man-db                         2.6.7.1-1
ii  patchutils                     0.3.3-1
ii  perl [libdigest-sha-perl]      5.18.2-6
ii  t1utils                        1.37-2

Versions of packages lintian recommends:
ii  libautodie-perl                 2.25-1
ii  libperlio-gzip-perl             0.18-3
ii  perl-modules [libautodie-perl]  5.18.2-6

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn  binutils-multiarch     <none>
ii  dpkg-dev               1.17.13
ii  libhtml-parser-perl    3.71-1+b1
ii  libtext-template-perl  1.46-1
ii  libyaml-perl           0.95-1
ii  xz-utils               5.1.1alpha+20120614-2

-- no debconf information