Re: how to get people to run lintian on their packages

[Benoît Knecht <benoit.knecht@fsfe.org>]

Hi Paul,

Paul Wise wrote:
> It is rare to see an RFS that says "The package appears to be lintian
> clean." and the package (especially binary ones) actually be lintian
> clean. If we were to change the RFS template, what could we change it
> to in order to encourage accuracy and for people to actually use
> lintian and fix any issues found.

I think three things are currently unclear:

  - lintian should be run on the .changes file before uploading a
    package to mentors, in order to check both the source and binary
    package (I know I used to run it on the .dsc file without realizing
    it wasn't checking the binary package).

  - The -I and --pedantic options should always be used.

  - And always use the latest version from unstable.

Would writing something like "Paste the output of lintian -I --pedantic
your_package.changes" instead of filling that line automatically in the
template be a better option? I would imagine people would then try to
fix any issues before blindly sending the message to mentors.

Cheers,

-- 
Benoît Knecht