Bug#530378: debian-policy: allow /usr/share/doc/<package> to point to another indirectly-depended-upon package's dir

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Serafeim Zanikolas <serzan@hellug.gr> writes:

> Perhaps a specific example might clarify the issue.
>
> - bogofilter (dummy package that only contains a symlink to
>   /usr/share/doc/bogofiflter-common) depends on bogofilter-db
> - bogofilter-db is a virtual package provided by bogofilter-{bdb,sqlite,etc},
> - bogofilter-{bdb,sqlite,etc} depend on bogofilter-common
>
> The bogofilter binary package violates policy in that it symlinks a
> directory from a package it doesn't depend on directly, even though
> it's guaranteed that the /usr/share/doc/bogofilter symlink will always
> be correct. The proposed policy change would not require bogofilter to
> depend directly on -common, as the reason to do so is satisfied via an
> indirect dependency.

I guess I'm not understanding why you don't just make bogofilter depend
on bogofilter-common as well.  What's the drawback?

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>