Pkg xen devel - Jun 2020 - Bug#962267: xen: please consider to not install NEWS into runtime library packages

Source: xen
Version: 4.11.4-1
Severity: minor
File: /usr/share/doc/libxenmisc4.11/NEWS.Debian.gz

Please consider to not install debian/NEWS into runtime library
packages.  They get pulled into systems that do not run Xen at all in
which case the NEWS aren't very helpful (just noise that
apt-listchanges shows).  For my system for example:

+---
| % aptitude why libxenmisc4.11
| i   qemu-kvm        Depends qemu-system-x86
| i A qemu-system-x86 Depends libxenmisc4.11
+---

Installing NEWS into xen*, but not libxen* probably still reaches all
relevant users.

Ansgar

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'),
(500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (300,
'buildd-unstable'), (300, 'unstable'), (1,
'experimental-debug'), (1, 'buildd-experimental'), (1,
'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.6.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE,
TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages libxenmisc4.11:amd64 depends on:
ii  libc6                 2.30-8
ii  libext2fs2            1.45.6-1
ii  liblzma5              5.2.4-1+b1
ii  libuuid1              2.35.2-2
ii  libxencall1           4.11.4-1
ii  libxendevicemodel1    4.11.4-1
ii  libxenevtchn1         4.11.4-1
ii  libxenforeignmemory1  4.11.4-1
ii  libxengnttab1         4.11.4-1
ii  libxenstore3.0        4.11.4-1
ii  libxentoollog1        4.11.4-1
ii  libyajl2              2.1.0-3
ii  zlib1g                1:1.2.11.dfsg-2

libxenmisc4.11:amd64 recommends no packages.

libxenmisc4.11:amd64 suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

Hi Ansgar,

On 6/5/20 11:57 AM, Ansgar wrote:
> Source: xen
> Version: 4.11.4-1
> Severity: minor
> File: /usr/share/doc/libxenmisc4.11/NEWS.Debian.gz
> 
> Please consider to not install debian/NEWS into runtime library
> packages.  They get pulled into systems that do not run Xen at all in
> which case the NEWS aren't very helpful (just noise that
> apt-listchanges shows).  For my system for example:
> 
> +---
> | % aptitude why libxenmisc4.11
> | i   qemu-kvm        Depends qemu-system-x86
> | i A qemu-system-x86 Depends libxenmisc4.11
> +---
> 
> Installing NEWS into xen*, but not libxen* probably still reaches all
> relevant users.
Yes, that makes sense.

OTOH, what if there was a really weird problem with libxenmisc4.11 that
we would like to pro-actively inform users about?

I guess there is only one NEWS per source package?

Hans

On Fri, 2020-06-05 at 12:09 +0200, Hans van Kranenburg
wrote:
> > Installing NEWS into xen*, but not libxen* probably still reaches all
> > relevant users.
> 
> Yes, that makes sense.
> 
> OTOH, what if there was a really weird problem with libxenmisc4.11 that
> we would like to pro-actively inform users about?
In that case shipping NEWS in libxen* would of course be fine in my
opinion even if it also includes some additional information that might
only be relevant to users of the other NEWS files.
> I guess there is only one NEWS per source package?
You can have `debian/<package>.NEWS` for per-binary NEWS when using
`dh_installchangelogs` or install them in some other way. But it
increases overhead and I would personally avoid having per-binary NEWS
for this reason.

Ansgar

Hi,

On 6/5/20 1:34 PM, Ansgar wrote:
> On Fri, 2020-06-05 at 12:09 +0200, Hans van Kranenburg wrote:
>>> Installing NEWS into xen*, but not libxen* probably still reaches
all
>>> relevant users.
>>
>> Yes, that makes sense.
>>
>> OTOH, what if there was a really weird problem with libxenmisc4.11 that
>> we would like to pro-actively inform users about?
> 
> In that case shipping NEWS in libxen* would of course be fine in my
> opinion even if it also includes some additional information that might
> only be relevant to users of the other NEWS files.
> 
>> I guess there is only one NEWS per source package?
> 
> You can have `debian/<package>.NEWS` for per-binary NEWS when using
> `dh_installchangelogs` or install them in some other way. But it
> increases overhead and I would personally avoid having per-binary NEWS
> for this reason.
Can you help me by explaining me what your current expectations
regarding this issue are? You ask for not having NEWS in specific binary
packages, but then subsequently explain that you'd prefer to avoid doing
exactly that.

Adding information to NEWS is quite an exceptional thing to happen. It's
only used for cases in which the user needs to take actions or needs to
be aware of a real problem that needs to be solved outside of the
context of what we can do in the packaging and Debian. My opinion is
that adding the extra complexity is not warranted to fix the accidental
annoyance of pressing a key on the keyboard for a user who chooses to
install apt-listchanges.

Thanks,
Hans

Hans van Kranenburg wrote:
> On 6/5/20 1:34 PM, Ansgar wrote:
> > On Fri, 2020-06-05 at 12:09 +0200, Hans van Kranenburg wrote:
> > > > Installing NEWS into xen*, but not libxen* probably still
> > > > reaches all
> > > > relevant users.
> > > 
> > > Yes, that makes sense.
> > > 
> > > OTOH, what if there was a really weird problem with
> > > libxenmisc4.11 that
> > > we would like to pro-actively inform users about?
> > 
> > In that case shipping NEWS in libxen* would of course be fine in my
> > opinion even if it also includes some additional information that
> > might
> > only be relevant to users of the other NEWS files.
> > 
> > > I guess there is only one NEWS per source package?
> > 
> > You can have `debian/<package>.NEWS` for per-binary NEWS when
using
> > `dh_installchangelogs` or install them in some other way. But it
> > increases overhead and I would personally avoid having per-binary
> > NEWS
> > for this reason.
> 
> Can you help me by explaining me what your current expectations
> regarding this issue are? You ask for not having NEWS in specific
> binary packages, but then subsequently explain that you'd prefer to
> avoid doing exactly that.
Just include NEWS in relevant packages, not in all; in particular not
in lib*.  That doesn't require per-binary NEWS as only one identical
NEWS file exists.

I don't think it is necessary to worry about the hypothetical case of
having to inform *all* admins of system that have libxenmisc*
installed, but aren't actually using Xen at all, like say every user of
qmeu (not all qemu users use Xen, even though qemu-system-x86 links to
libxenmisc*).
> Adding information to NEWS is quite an exceptional thing to happen.
> It's only used for cases in which the user needs to take actions or
> needs to be aware of a real problem that needs to be solved outside
> of the context of what we can do in the packaging and Debian. My
> opinion is that adding the extra complexity is not warranted to fix
> the accidental annoyance of pressing a key on the keyboard for a user
> who chooses to install apt-listchanges.
As Debian build packages generally enabling most compile-time options,
many packages end up linked to shared libraries that provide functions
not used at all.  Users generally don't need to take any action just
because a package has optional support for Xen and one shouldn't annoy
users in this case: it only results in apt-listchanges getting less
useful as it notifies about irrelevant stuff.

Debian should try to be user-friendly and only inform users of relevant
changes with the NEWS files.  Here this can be easily achieved by
shipping NEWS.Debian only in xen-utils-common or so (and not in
libxen*).

Ansgar

Your message dated Mon, 09 May 2022 22:43:34 +0000
with message-id <E1noC6I-000F2s-ME at fasolo.debian.org>
and subject line Bug#962267: fixed in xen 4.16.1-1
has caused the Debian Bug report #962267,
regarding xen: please consider to not install NEWS into runtime library packages
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact owner at bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
962267: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=962267
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner at bugs.debian.org with problems
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