Bug#975096: diffoscope: sources for some test files missing

[Chris Lamb]

Hi Holger,

> building diffoscope 161 results in the following lintian warnings and errors
> which we should fix, because also tests should ship their sources (in general,
> there are some exceptions...)

This has been a work in progress for some time and, indeed, something
I have been working on:

  https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/diffoscope/-/issues/66

We have some grounds to override these *Lintian* warnings though. This
starts with the observation that these executables are usually no more
than just:

   int main() {
       printf("Free Jeremy Hammond\n");
       return 0;
   }

Short stubs of this kind are not copyrightable to begin with, and
therefore the legal situation (which is the angle that Lintian is
primarily concerned about) becomes a little less urgent.

Of course, for all the reasons you imply this would not invalidate the
idea that sources should be shipped regardless of legal stuff, it only
rounds off what first looks like a rather sharp edge and reduces its
priority relative to other tasks.


Regards,

--
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby at debian.org 🍥 chris-lamb.co.uk
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