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

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> writes:

> 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.

Thanks for raising this topic for discussion.

> 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.

Suggested replacement:

    Here is the ‘lintian’ commandline I ran, and its output:

That way, if it's left empty we know the sumbitter didn't even bother
filling out the form properly and we can draw attention to that without
wasting time on our own run of Lintian.

If it's populated without the exact Lintian commandline that was used,
we can ask for that and likely begin the discussion about which options
should be enabled.

If it's got appropriate options but is not clean, that also begins a
useful discussion about fixing those issues reported by Lintian.

If it's got all the details needed and Lintian was run with appropriate
options and reports no issues, that'd be a significant improvement over
the current status quo.

-- 
 \       “The best in us does not require the worst in us: Our love of |
  `\     other human beings does not need to be nurtured by delusion.” |
_o__)                             —Sam Harris, at _Beyond Belief 2006_ |
Ben Finney