Re: Mass-filing bug against use of '/usr/bin/env perl' shebang line
* [Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 11:38:42AM +0200] Ansgar Burchardt:
Having a lintian check for this would be nice.
Yes, I was planning to look at it, possibly in a couple of days. Any
hint is greatly appreciated, as I've never dug into lintian's
`internals'.
Also Policy is a bit unclear about the requirement: Policy 10.4 has
"In the case of Perl scripts this should be #!/usr/bin/perl" (SHOULD),
only the Perl Policy has a MUST. I filed a bug for this issue[1].
Please note that I personally have no strong opinion about this.
[1] <http://bugs.debian.org/683495>
Thanks for pointing it out. As you've argued, "Policy 11.9 only says
packages SHOULD follow the Perl policy", so, all in all, the shebang
requirement has to be considered a MUST of a SHOULD requirement. I feel
comfortable with it resolving to a SHOULD requirement per itself.
In particular I don't think the one here is serious: you cannot rely on
programs working properly once you provide your own versions of system
binaries.
Good point. I'm now persuaded it isn't an hard requirement, so a
severity `serious' isn't appropriate.
Anyway, your argument goes further. As I read it, apart from violating a
policy clause, there's no serious reason in considering it bug. I mean:
i.e., for python, for which AFAIK no similar requirement is specified,
it cannot be considered a bug.[0]
I for myself don't care much about Python or Ruby or others - as I tend
not to use them - but, generally speaking (so not limiting to Perl), I
support the idea that Debian should ease the possibility for the user of
working/develop/whatever with one or more custom environments and at the
same time being able to run Debian-shipped scripts.[1] Sure the user can
accommodate it himself, with varying degrees of hassle, but OTOH I don't
see the point of using env instead of the punctual binary path.
Back to the point: I'm inclined to consider the bug `important', but I'd
like to hear your opinions about the matter.
Ciao,
Gian Piero.
[0] Please note I'm speculating about your statement, I'm in no way
implying this is your actual position.
[1] In other words: I support the idea of Debian being as user-resilient
as possible :).
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