Bug#271014: binary-without-manpage uses "must" instead of "should"
Package: lintian
Version: 1.23.2
Severity: normal
Tags: patch
Policy says providing a manpage is a "should" requirement not a "must" one,
but lintian's wording in the binary-without-manpage warning uses "must".
Since Policy makes a clear distinction between what "should" and "must" mean,
making lintian inconsistent with that leads to confusion. Please fix that
(I'm attaching a patch).
Quoting Policy 12.1:
"Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual page
included in the same package."
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: kfreebsd-i386 (i386)
Kernel: GNU/kFreeBSD 5.2.1-6
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (ignored: LC_ALL set to C)
Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii binutils 2.14.90.0.7-8+kbsd.1 The GNU assembler, linker and bina
ii diffstat 1.34-1 produces graph of changes introduc
ii file 4.10-3 Determines file type using "magic"
ii gettext 0.14.1-5 GNU Internationalization utilities
ii man-db 2.4.2-17+cfg The on-line manual pager
ii perl [libdigest-md5 5.8.4-1+kbsd Larry Wall's Practical Extraction
-- no debconf information
--- lintian-1.23.2/checks/manpages.desc.old 2004-09-10 17:30:42.000000000 +0200
+++ lintian-1.23.2/checks/manpages.desc 2004-09-10 17:31:35.000000000 +0200
@@ -35,11 +35,11 @@
Tag: binary-without-manpage
Type: error
Info: Each binary in <tt>/usr/bin</tt>, <tt>/usr/sbin</tt>, <tt>/bin</tt>,
- <tt>/sbin</tt>, or <tt>/usr/games</tt>, must have a manual page.
+ <tt>/sbin</tt>, or <tt>/usr/games</tt>, should have a manual page.
.
Note, that though the `man' program has the capability to check for
several program names in the NAMES section, each of these programs
- must have its own manual page (a symbolic link to the appropriate
+ should have its own manual page (a symbolic link to the appropriate
manual page is sufficient) because other manual page viewers such as
xman or tkman don't support this.
Ref: policy 12.1
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