Bug#779866: lintian: debian/copyright parser emits non-understandable warnings
On 2015-03-05 19:40, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> Package: lintian
> Version: 2.5.30-150-g79ba4df
> Severity: normal
>
> The parser for debian/copyright seems to be under heavy development.
Hi,
The DEP-5 copyright check "only" got two new tag (the ones you list
below) since the last release to unstable and the actual changes to the
check are rather modest.
> Unfortunately I only learn about the (possible) problems after upload,
> i.e. it is not possible to work on them in unstable and fix the issues
> before upload.
>
> Furthermore (and the core of this bug) is the problem that the emitted
> errors are hard to understand, so uploads become something like trial
> and error.
>
Indeed, you would be unable to test these with the packaged version of
lintian. However, it is fairly uncomplicated to run lintian from a git
checkout.
$ git clone https://anonscm.debian.org/git/lintian/lintian.git
$ lintian/frontend/lintian [options] path/to/your/package.changes
I fully understand if you do not want to do that. I am just mentioning
the option, in case you might find it useful.
> The two most recent occasions for me are
> a) dep5-copyright-license-name-not-unique
> cf. to
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2015/03/msg00029.html for a
> discussion and subsequent bug from Charles Plessy (#779676)
>
Indeed, there is a separate bug for that tag, so lets keep the
discussion about that there.
> b) dep5-file-paragraph-reference-header
> which I now receive after "fixing" the previous error.
>
Do your "Header-paragraph" contain a license field and does a
"Files"-paragraph reference the license of that field? That seems to be
what this is checking for.
> I tried to understand the first sentence of the long description, but
> failed:
>
> One of the file paragraph reference in the license field a standalone
> license defined in the header paragraph.
>
> Also the second sentence is very long and quite difficult to
> understand (at least for non native speakers).
>
Yes, the description is some what difficult to read. The source of your
woes are caused by several issues combined.
> In my opinion two actions should resolve this issue:
>
> a) Provide lintian to unstable *before* using it to check uploaded
> packages. This enables maintainers to upload lintian clean
> packages.
>
Generally, we do that. Though in some cases, we do rapid deploys to
lintian.d.o for updating the reporting framework. This time, we had a
nasty issue where the reporting framework suffered from "out of memory"
issues causing parts of it to fail. This is the reason why these checks
are now live without being released.
> b) Spend a little more time for the description of the tag.
>
> c) Reword dep5-file-paragraph-reference-header, possibly using simpler
> english and several sentences.
>
The tag descriptions were drafted by a person with dyslexia. Under
normal circumstances, the new tag descriptions are sent to review on
debian-l18n(-english?) prior to a release and they would assist with
maturing the tag description.
Though as explained above, in this particular case, the tags are live
on the website prior to a release (and therefore, also a review).
If you are unhappy with the tag descriptions, I am happy to revised
descriptions.
~Niels
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