Bug#73620: Policy example about INSTALL is wrong

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 11:15:21AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>  Josip> Using install-sh while /usr/bin/install exists just wastes
>  Josip> time/resources of people who recompile (think 6 build
>  Josip> daemons), I don't see why shouldn't Policy recommend a more
>  Josip> rational method.
> 
> 	Becausepolicy is not a method for laying down the law on good
>  practices (espescially since it can be then used to beat developers
>  over the head with), since policy would baloon to an unwieldy
>  size. Policy should be a minimal document; not everything has to be
>  in policy. 

Quoting Policy:

     Generally the following compilation parameters should be used:

                    CC = gcc
                    CFLAGS = -O2 -Wall # sane warning options vary between programs
                    LDFLAGS = # none
                    install -s # (or use strip on the files in debian/tmp)

     Note that by default all installed binaries should be stripped, either
     by using the `-s' flag to `install', or by calling `strip' on the
     binaries after they have been copied into `debian/tmp' but before the
     tree is made into a package.

I see nothing there that is a firm rule, everything is a recommendation, a
good practice. The install-sh script is a replacement for install(1) on
systems that don't have it, not the other way round. There is absolutely no
reason why would one want to use install-sh over install(1) on Debian
systems. If there was, it would be a bug in our install(1), and an important
one, in fact.

Yet there can be valid reasons why to use different compiler flags (general
and per-architecture optimizations, different warning levels, -ansi or
-pedantic, etc), or to call strip in some other place of the process
(there's no need to do additional stripping when upstream has a build system
that makes unstripped binaries in src/ and stripped in bin/ directory, etc).

Also, I was not suggesting adding a requirement of using install(1) over
install-sh, I just mentioned how it would make a nice suggestion, perhaps
even in a footnote. The Developers' Reference could contain this, yes, but
then it would be logical to also move the above paragraph from Policy, along
with anything similar.

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