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Bug#1017446: marked as done (debian-policy: stress that preinst script that install by using base64 decode on self an elf binary is not a good stuff)

Your message dated Sun, 18 Sep 2022 19:44:00 -0700
with message-id <874jx4rslr.fsf@hope.eyrie.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#1017446: debian-policy: stress that preinst script that install by using base64 decode on self an elf binary is not a good stuff
has caused the Debian Bug report #1017446,
regarding debian-policy: stress that preinst script that install by using base64 decode on self an elf binary is not a good stuff
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
1017446: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1017446
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: debian-policy
Version: 4.6.1.0
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

I will like to stress that this kind of stuff is bad:
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/isa-support/-/blob/master/debian/altivec-
support.preinst.in#L10

base64 encoded binary in maint script and mktemp on /usr/lib

I have no idea about documentating why it is bad. But for the sake of history
we must learn of mistake, and document it

Bastien


-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 5.18.0-2-rt-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

debian-policy depends on no packages.

Versions of packages debian-policy recommends:
ii  libjs-sphinxdoc  4.5.0-4

Versions of packages debian-policy suggests:
pn  doc-base  <none>

-- no debconf information

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Control: tags -1 wontfix

Bastien Roucariès <rouca@debian.org> writes:

> I will like to stress that this kind of stuff is bad:
> https://salsa.debian.org/debian/isa-support/-/blob/master/debian/altivec-
> support.preinst.in#L10

> base64 encoded binary in maint script and mktemp on /usr/lib

> I have no idea about documentating why it is bad. But for the sake of
> history we must learn of mistake, and document it

After reviewing the previous discussion on this bug, I'm going to apply
the "not all bugs are Policy violations" rule here and close this out as
wontfix.

Yes, this is very odd, and I would not want lots of packages in Debian
doing things like this.  However, Policy should not be an enumeration of
every strange thing someone has tried to do with a package, or it will
become unreadably verbose.

I don't think we're in any danger of people thinking this is a normal
thing to do in a package or is endorsed by Policy.  It's a very odd
workaround for a very specific problem, which may or may not be warranted,
but in any case is an edge case sufficiently rare that I think talking
about it in Policy is more confusing than helpful.

This is the sort of thing that's more usefully a topic of a thread on
debian-devel (which I think may have already happened) than here.  If
there's some reason for concern that this pattern might be copied, I could
maybe see adding a Lintian tag for base64 blobs in maintainer scripts, but
even there I'm dubious that anyone would accidentally or unintentionally
chose to do something this awkward without some good motivating reason.

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

--- End Message ---
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