[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] 2.86.ds1-18 upgrade fails to warn the user via apt-listchanges

[Yannick Roehlly]

Dear sysvinit and apt-listchanges mainteners,

I use apt-listchanges to track Debian news file during upgrades. The 
2.86.ds1-18 showed me a problem and as I don't know if it's a sysinit 
packaging problem or a apt-listchanges one I'm writing to you (tell me if you 
want me to report this bug to any of these packages).

[For Pierre]
The 2.86.ds1-18 version for sysinitv correct a problem appeared in 2.86.ds1-16 
and gives a little script[1] to correct things in the NEWS.Debian.gz file.


On my i386 computer, everything worked as expected and apt-listchanges warned 
me via sending me the new lines in NEWS.Debian.gz.

I have also a powerpc machine. At the moment, sysvinit v. 2.86.ds1-18 has not 
been built for powerpc but the sysv-rc 2.86.ds1-18 was installed as it's 
an "all architecture" package.
When upgrading "the powerpc architecture" sysvinit package, as sysv-rc from 
the same source as been yet upgraded, apt-listchanges won't tell me about the 
changes in /usr/share/doc/sysvinit/NEWS.Debian.gz and I will miss the 
information about the problem and the script to correct the situation.

I've built sysvinit v. 2.86.ds1-18 with apt-build so I think upgrading from 
the Debian archive will lead to the same behaviour.


The solutions would be:
- Include the warning and the script in the all.deb package but that would be 
misleading because the new binaries would not yet be on the system.
- Make a dependency between sysv-rc and sysvinit of the same version.
- Make apt-listchanges track changes in the sysvinit v. 2.86.ds1-18 
NEWS.Debian.gz even if sysv-rc from the same source was already upgraded.


I am aware that's this problem may be more a apt-listchanges one and that 
sysvinit maintainer may have other problem than to take care of this one but 
I wanted to warn you as the information in the NEWS.Debian.gz are important 
and the user must be informed.

Sincerely,

Yannick


[1] The script could pose problems with unpurged packages but that's another 
issue.