[debhelper-devel] Bug#766711: debhelper: Dependency added by dh_installdocs --link-doc breaks binary-only NMUs

[Robert Luberda]

Package: debhelper
Version: 9.20141022
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 12.3

afterstep package after recent binary-only NMU is no longer installable,
because dh_installdocs has added the following strict dependency on 
arch-independent package:
  afterstep-data (=2.2.12-2+b2)

See this log:
https://buildd.debian.org/status/fetch.php?pkg=afterstep&arch=i386&ver=2.2.12-2%2Bb2&stamp=1413508373
and compare it with the log of previous binary-only NMU from last year:
https://buildd.debian.org/status/fetch.php?pkg=afterstep&arch=i386&ver=2.2.12-2%2Bb1&stamp=1387741360


The policy in section 12.3 and footnote 116 refers to source versions,
not binary versions:
  /usr/share/doc/package may be a symbolic link to another directory in
  /usr/share/doc only if the two packages both come from the same source
  and the first package Depends on the second.[116] 

  [116] Please note that this does not override the section on changelog files
  below, so the file /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.Debian.gz must refer
  to the changelog for the current version of package in question. In
  practice, this means that the sources of the target and the destination
  of the symlink must be the same (same source package and version).


Regards,
robert


-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (200, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.11-2-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=pl_PL.UTF8, LC_CTYPE=pl_PL.UTF8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages debhelper depends on:
ii  binutils      2.24.90.20141023-1
ii  dpkg          1.17.20
ii  dpkg-dev      1.17.20
ii  file          1:5.20-1
ii  libdpkg-perl  1.17.20
ii  man-db        2.7.0.2-2
ii  perl          5.20.1-2
ii  po-debconf    1.0.16+nmu3

debhelper recommends no packages.

Versions of packages debhelper suggests:
ii  dh-make  1.20140617

-- no debconf information