Possible transition: Debian realpath -> GNU realpath; please test your packages

[Robert Luberda]

Hi,

I'm writing to you, as your package depends or build-depends on the
realpath package (see the list at the end of this mail).

As the maintainer of realpath, I would like to replace it with the GNU
version provided by the coreutils package (see bug#693211), in my
opionion there is no reason for Debian to provide a bit different version
of realpath command than all other distros provide.

The differences between Debian version and GNU version are related to
treating not exisiting file path components. Namely the GNU `realpath' 
and GNU `realpath -s' want *all, but the last* component to  exist,
while:
- Debian `realpath' requires *all* the components to exist;
- for Debian `realpath -s' *no* path component need to exist.
(By using some additional options like `-e' or `-m' the GNU version 
 can be told to behave in the same way as the Debian version).

Could you please check if the above differences are important to your
packages? You can try to test your package against experimental
`realpath 1.19.coreutils.1' that is built from the coreutils sources.


For the transition itself, since the gcc-* packages have versioned
build-dependency on `realpath (>= 1.9.12)' (BTW. GCC maintainers, could
you please check if the dependency is really needed?), the best option
would be via a dummy package. 

If you agree that the differences I described above are not important, 
I will ask Michael to include realpath in coreutils and then I'll 
upload realpath package depending on coreutils.

However if it turns out that the difference is important for some
package, the transition would need to be done in the following steps:
- `-e'/`-m' compatibility options should be added to Debian realpath;
- the package should be changed to call realpath with the above options,
  obviously introducing versioned dependency on realpath;
- the realpath package can be made transitional one.


I would like to have the transition done for jessie, so I would really 
appreciate if you could check if your packages are compatible with new 
realpath or not.

Thank you in advance,
robert


Please find below a list by maintainer of packages depending on realpath:

***  Binary package dependencies ***
  Debian Common Lisp Team <pkg-common-lisp-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org> (common-lisp-controller)
  Riku Voipio <riku.voipio at iki.fi> (scratchbox2)
  Matthew Johnson <mjj29 at debian.org> (imdb-tools)
  Debian Embedded <debian-embedded at lists.debian.org> (buildcross)
  Ian Jackson <ijackson at chiark.greenend.org.uk> (dgit)
  Bernd Schumacher <bernd.schumacher at hp.com> (bootcd)
  Grml Team <team at grml.org> (grml2usb)
  PKG OpenStack <openstack-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org> (python3-misaka python-misaka)

*** Build dependencies ***
  CDBS Hackers <build-common-hackers at lists.alioth.debian.org> (cdbs)
  Philipp Kern <pkern at debian.org> (gcc-3.3)
  Debian GCC Maintainers <debian-gcc at lists.debian.org> (gcc-4.4, gcc-4.6, gcc-4.7, gcc-4.8, gcc-snapshot, gcj-4.6, gnat-4.4, gnat-4.6, gnat-4.8)
  Antonio Terceiro <terceiro at debian.org> (vboot-utils)

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