Bug#953428: Using /usr/bin/env to invoke maintainer scripts

[Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com>]

Dear Policy Team,

> Does Debian Policy prohibit the use of /usr/bin/env?

Lintian flags the interpreter /usr/bin/env in maintainer scripts.
Unfortunately, that appears inconsistent with the recommendations for
scripts in Debian.

Policy section 6.1 states that "Programs called from maintainer
scripts should not normally have a path prepended to them." It says
further that "any ... program that one would expect to be in the PATH,
should ... be invoked without an absolute pathname." Finally, it
expands on the point with "These considerations really apply to all
shell scripts."

Lintian does not flag /usr/bin/env in regular, i.e. non-maintainer scripts.

Why is the use of the system PATH desirable in the body of a
maintainer script, but not when locating the interpreter, please (the
shebang). Shouldn't we encourage the use of /usr/bin/env? Or does the
calling infrastructure disregard the path?

Please respond to the bug. I do not subscribe to your mailing list. Thank you!

Kind regards
Felix Lechner