Re: Hard coded package names in lintian

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Luk Claes <luk@debian.org> writes:

> So, libglib1.2ldbl, libgtk1.2 and maybe libgd2-xpm would qualify to be
> included?
>
> Do you want me to file a bug to include them or is mentioning them over
> here enough?

Could you explain more why that would be?  For the first two, do you think
there are maintainers of GTK 1 packages who don't know that it's
deprecated?

For example, I maintain one package that depends on GTK 1 (RFA'd), and I
don't see any way in which a lintian warning would be of assistance.  I
know perfectly well that it depends on GTK 1 and that's in oldlibs.  If no
one rewrites it before Debian decides to drop GTK 1, I suppose it will be
removed from the archive.

lintian usually adds entries for things like old versions of Emacs where
the maintainer may not be aware that simple changes are required to their
package to keep it working.  Usually we add a lintian warning in
conjunction with a mass bug filing; if you're not ready to do a mass bug
filing, I'm not sure that a lintian warning is in order.  (And I don't
think a lintian warning really ever makes sense for something like GTK
1.0, where there is no simple problem that can be fixed and you're
basically warning the maintainer that the software either has to be
rewritten or dropped from the archive.)

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