Bug#388973: tex-common: [annoying_notes] Abuse of debconf note(s)
Package: tex-common
Version: N/A
Severity: normal
Hello,
As announced in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/09/msg00630.html, this bug
report is part of a mass bug filing campaign about the "abuse" of
debconf templates of type "note".
First of all, in case you fixed you package in the short timeframe
that happned between my announcement and this bug report, please
accept my apologies and, of course, feel free to ask me to close the
bug report...or just close it yourself.
One or more template(s) has/have been identified in tex-common
debconf templates and an automated analysis mentions that it/they is/are
displayed to users at low or medium priority.
The debconf-devel(7) manpage makes it clear that the "note" type should
be used only for important notes that the user really should see.
On the other hand, the "low" priority is meant for very trivial items
that have defaults that will work in the vast majority of
cases. The "medium" priority is meant for normal items
that have reasonable defaults.
As such, a note should only be used for IMPORTANT stuff, so actually
all debconf notes should be priority high....or should not exist.
Please consider one of the following options:
- move the text of the debconf note to the README.Debian file. The drawback
is that the text will not be translatable anymore, which will be worked
in the future. However, given that your note is very rarely displayed,
this is indeed not a very strong drawback
- move the text to NEWS.Debian. This option should however rather be
reserved for future texts of the same kind as the contents of this file
is only displayed when users upgrade the package
- change the template type to "error" in case this note is meant to be
displayed only in some cases when a problem shows up during execution of
the maintainer's scripts. Please check debconf-devel(7) for details
- raise the priority to "high". This should be the last option to consider.
It should be used only in cases where you judge that the information you
display is VITAL for users of your package and that one could NOT USE IT
if not reading the note.
A dedicated check will be proposed to the lintian and linda package
maintainers so that future uses of low and medium priority note
templates will be discouraged in the future. So, if you wish you
package to be lintian-clean, then you need to fix this..:-)
Template(s) identified in your package:
tex-common -- config:48 tex-common/cnf_name
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-2-686
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to fr_FR.UTF-8)
Versions of packages tetex-base depends on:
ii ucf 2.0015 Update Configuration File: preserv
Versions of packages tetex-bin depends on:
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.5 Debian configuration management sy
ii debianutils 2.17.2 Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii dialog 1.0-20060221-1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii dpkg 1.13.22 package maintenance system for Deb
ii ed 0.2-20 The classic unix line editor
ii libc6 2.3.6.ds1-4 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libfontconfig1 2.4.1-2 generic font configuration library
ii libfreetype6 2.2.1-5 FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii libgcc1 1:4.1.1-13 GCC support library
ii libice6 1:1.0.1-2 X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii libjpeg62 6b-13 The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG
ii libkpathsea4 3.0-18 path search library for teTeX (run
ii libpaper1 1.1.20 Library for handling paper charact
ii libpng12-0 1.2.8rel-5.2 PNG library - runtime
ii libpoppler0c2 0.4.5-4.1 PDF rendering library
ii libsm6 1:1.0.1-3 X11 Session Management library
ii libstdc++6 4.1.1-13 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii libt1-5 5.1.0-2 Type 1 font rasterizer library - r
ii libx11-6 2:1.0.0-9 X11 client-side library
ii libxaw7 1:1.0.2-4 X11 Athena Widget library
ii libxext6 1:1.0.1-2 X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii libxmu6 1:1.0.2-2 X11 miscellaneous utility library
ii libxpm4 1:3.5.5-2 X11 pixmap library
ii libxt6 1:1.0.2-2 X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii mime-support 3.37-1 MIME files 'mime.types' & 'mailcap
ii perl 5.8.8-6.1 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction
ii sed 4.1.5-1 The GNU sed stream editor
ii tetex-base 3.0-21 Basic TeX input files of teTeX
ii ucf 2.0015 Update Configuration File: preserv
ii whiptail 0.52.2-7 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3-13 compression library - runtime
Versions of packages tetex-extra depends on:
ii tetex-base 3.0-21 Basic TeX input files of teTeX
ii tetex-bin 3.0-18 The teTeX binary files
ii ucf 2.0015 Update Configuration File: preserv
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