Bug#1104854: binNMUs can cause ma-same violations in eg manpages [and 1 more messages]

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

We need to consider the trixie freeze:

Ian Jackson writes ("binNMUs can cause ma-same violations in eg manpages"):
> Options that I can see:

I think the only ones that are acceptable right now (including of the
D E and F mentioned later in this bug), given that toolchain updates
are out of the question, are these:

>  A. Shared files in ma-same packages are not allowed to embed S_D_E.
>     For example, no dates in libopts25-dev's manpages.  Other
>     situations (eg, other docs) will be handled similarly.
> 
>  A.0. Implement the above by patching out the date requests in the
>     manpages in the individual package.  (Dates in manpages aren't
>     really very useful anyway.)  Add a lintian lint which spots a
>     ma-same package with dates in manpages.
...
>  C. Say that affected packages may not be binNMU'd, but instead
>     require a no-changes source-only upload.  It's not clear how we
>     would avoid cosntantly making the mistake of doing a binNMU
>     anyway, producing an ma-same violation.

Ie, declare this, in some sense, a mistake in how we've handled
libopts25-dev.  I don't think C is attractive because it leaves a
footgun pointed at the security and stable teams for the life of
trixie.

As Chris observes, this is the de facto situation.

I suggest therefore that for now we patch the dates out of the
manpages in this package.

We can keep this bug open for choosing a longer-term answer.

Ian.

-- 
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>   These opinions are my own.  

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