[Bug 899520] [NEW] pkgstriptranslations creates policy-incompliant symlinks

[Evan Broder]

Public bug reported:

When pkgstriptranslations replaces files in /usr/share/help,
/usr/share/gnome/help, etc. with symlinks to their -langpack
counterparts, it creates absolute symlinks.

Since the symlinks will link two files in the same top-level directory,
they will always be a violation of Debian Policy Section 10.5 - Symbolic
links (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s10.5).

According to data extracted from http://lintian.ubuntuwire.org, there
are currently about 22,500 symlinks that violate this policy in the
Ubuntu archive:

  udd=# CREATE TABLE ubuntu_only_lintian AS SELECT * FROM ubuntu_lintian EXCEPT SELECT * FROM lintian;
  SELECT 156482
  udd=# SELECT COUNT(tag) AS count FROM ubuntu_only_lintian WHERE tag='symlink-should-be-relative' AND information LIKE '%-langpack%';
   count 
  -------
   22509
  (1 row)

(http://lintian.ubuntuwire.org/tags/symlink-should-be-relative.html has
the list of all emissions of this tag, though not all of those are
unique to Ubuntu and not all of the ones unique to Ubuntu are from
pkgstriptranslations)

** Affects: pkgbinarymangler (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/899520

Title:
  pkgstriptranslations creates policy-incompliant symlinks

Status in “pkgbinarymangler” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  When pkgstriptranslations replaces files in /usr/share/help,
  /usr/share/gnome/help, etc. with symlinks to their -langpack
  counterparts, it creates absolute symlinks.

  Since the symlinks will link two files in the same top-level
  directory, they will always be a violation of Debian Policy Section
  10.5 - Symbolic links (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-
  files.html#s10.5).

  According to data extracted from http://lintian.ubuntuwire.org, there
  are currently about 22,500 symlinks that violate this policy in the
  Ubuntu archive:

    udd=# CREATE TABLE ubuntu_only_lintian AS SELECT * FROM ubuntu_lintian EXCEPT SELECT * FROM lintian;
    SELECT 156482
    udd=# SELECT COUNT(tag) AS count FROM ubuntu_only_lintian WHERE tag='symlink-should-be-relative' AND information LIKE '%-langpack%';
     count 
    -------
     22509
    (1 row)

  (http://lintian.ubuntuwire.org/tags/symlink-should-be-relative.html
  has the list of all emissions of this tag, though not all of those are
  unique to Ubuntu and not all of the ones unique to Ubuntu are from
  pkgstriptranslations)

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