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Bug#1002626: debian-policy: building packages should not require to be root



Hello Russ,

On Sat 25 Dec 2021 at 06:45PM -08, Russ Allbery wrote:

> Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> writes:
>> On 2021-12-25 14:48:33 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
>>> Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> writes:
>
>>>> Here, the build via "debuild" is failing even when fakeroot is
>>>> available (installed on the machine). Note that Rules-Requires-Root
>>>> has been set to "no". IMHO, the policy should say that when
>>>> Rules-Requires-Root is set to "no", being root or using fakeroot
>>>> should not be required.
>
>>> It does already.
>
>>>     no: Declares that neither root nor fakeroot is required. Package
>>>     builders (e.g. dpkg-buildpackage) may choose to invoke any target in
>>>     debian/rules with an unprivileged user.
>
>>> Am I missing something?
>
>> According to Sean, this is just advisory (and Scott Kitterman seemed
>> to assume that a build failure as non-root[*] was not a RC bug).
>
> I don't understand what "advisory" means here.  This field controls the
> behavior of the package building software.  If the package says that root
> isn't required, the package will be built without root.  If root turns out
> to be required, the package will FTBFS.  There's nothing "advisory" about
> having inaccurate package metadata that causes FTBFS, surely?

I said that the requirement is only advisory based on how there is no
requirement on packages expressed must/should/etc. in the description of
Rules-Requires-Root: no in Policy.  The target of the advice would be
authors and maintainers of package builders.

However, I missed the use of "required" in the text, which means there
is in fact a Policy requirement not to fail to build as non-root when
this field value is declared, I think?

Sorry for causing some confusion here.

-- 
Sean Whitton

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