Bug#774068: ExtUtils-MakeMaker and NO_PERLLOCAL

[Niko Tyni]

(cc'ing the debian-perl list)

On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 08:38:56AM +0000, Damyan Ivanov wrote:
> -=| Andrew Beverley, 29.12.2014 00:16:14 +0000 |=-
> > Is there any harm in having the option in there, especially as the
> > upstream version of EU-MM defaults to creating perllocal.pod files, and
> > provides this option to prevent it happening?
> 
> As I see it, adding and maintaining a line to 2000+ debian/rules files 
> is a bit of a burden. Not an unbearable one, but we embraced the tiny 
> dh rules exactly because they made things really simple.
> 
> > Presumably Debian's version uses a patched version of EU-MM, which was
> > required before this option was available.
> 
> I wonder if debhelper would be the right place to add this. This would 
> solve the problem this patch solves, and maybe also simplify the patch 
> in the perl package package [1]
> 
> [1] 
> https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/perl/perl.git/tree/debian/patches/debian/no_packlist_perllocal.diff

Right, that seems like the right long term approach to me. Ideally,
debhelper could pass both NO_PACKLIST and NO_PERLLOCAL to EU::MM, and
the above patch wouldn't be needed at all.

This would be a similar transition to the (still unfinished) PREFIX one,
see #579461 and 
 https://lintian.debian.org/tags/debian-rules-makemaker-prefix-is-deprecated.html

Packages not using the short form dh rules would need to be modified
before the patch could be removed. The required steps would be something
like
 1) change the Perl policy to recommend NO_PACKLIST + NO_PERLLOCAL
 2) change debhelper v9 to use them
 3) add a lintian check and/or do a mass bug filing for the other packages
 4) wait for (most of) the packages to be fixed
 5) change the Perl policy to require NO_PACKLIST + NO_PERLLOCAL
 6) remove the patch from the perl package

A champion for this (and also for finishing the PREFIX transition)
would be very welcome.

There are quite a few other Debian-specific patches around EU::MM in
the perl package.  While it would be nice to get rid of them one way or
another, separately packaged unpatched versions of EU::MM are going to
be somewhat problematic until that happens.

 % git grep -l ExtUtils-MakeMaker debian/patches/
 debian/patches/debian/extutils_set_libperl_path.diff
 debian/patches/debian/instmodsh_doc.diff
 debian/patches/debian/ld_run_path.diff
 debian/patches/debian/makemaker-pasthru.diff
 debian/patches/debian/no_packlist_perllocal.diff
 debian/patches/debian/prefix_changes.diff
 debian/patches/debian/writable_site_dirs.diff
 debian/patches/fixes/document_makemaker_ccflags.diff
 debian/patches/fixes/respect_umask.diff

-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org