Bug#1069256: debian-policy: clarify requirement for use of Static-Built-Using

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Thu, 2025-08-14 at 17:17:44 +0100, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> I've been thinking a bit more about this field, and wondered if we
> could tighten up its purpose?  The current wording in deb-control
> says:
> 
>   This is useful to track whether this package might need to be
>   rebuilt when source packages listed here have been updated, for
>   example due to security updates.
> 
> Could we say instead something like this?
> 
>   When packages listed here are updated, this package should also be
>   updated, for example because of changed functionality potentially
>   impacting the package behaviour, or for security updates.
> 
> Then this opens the door to potentially using it for automatic
> rebuilding, rather than just a convenient place to list packages that
> were used during the build process.  (The buildinfo files already do
> that, though I don't believe we currently retain them, which is a
> shame.)

I guess my concern with at least turning this into a "should" is that
it feels it would potential imply a burden to whoever might be on the
receiving end of this, where I don't think we are currently ready to
honor that commitment (due to missing tooling, processes, etc).

I think the rest of the clarification looks good, and I'd have no
problem with incorporating that in into the man page, let's say
perhaps for now with this?

  This is useful to track whether this package might need to be
  rebuilt when source packages listed here have been updated, for
  example because of changed functionality potentially impacting
  the package behavior, or for security updates.

And we can apply the "should" part later on, once/if we are ready
to handle that.

Thanks,
Guillem