Bug#571776: debian-policy: Libraries should be allowed to not provide shlibs when they provide symbols file

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:

> Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> writes:
>
>> Russ, dpkg-gensymbols could be modified to do that shlibs
>> generation. Feel free to file a wishlist request against dpkg-dev.
>
> Will do.  Thanks!  I agree with Mike that for people already maintaining a
> symbols file, this would be very useful to do automatically during the
> build and remove a source of possible errors and inconsistency.

But what for?

The symbol file doesn't work for udebs because it lacks the udeb
entries. But then the automatic conversion will also lack those entries
and nothing has been won. And if you don't have udebs then the symbols
file is already sufficient for all features and the shlibs adds nothing.

Given a correct symbol files the shlibs file, manually or automatically
generated, gains nothing. It only adds the possibility of the shlibs
file being wrong. So why not allow libraries to have symbol files only?
That wouldn't even need any tool to change at all. Just some words in
policy.

MfG
        Gowin