Bug#415969: libsys-syslog-perl: namespace pollution

[Justin B Rye]

Package: libsys-syslog-perl
Version: 0.18-1
Severity: normal

This package uses the same module name as the Sys::Syslog included
as /usr/lib/perl/5.8.8/Sys/Syslog.pm in the package perl itself, but
puts it in /usr/lib/perl5.

When the admin installs mailscanner (Depends: libsys-syslog-perl),
users' scripts that call "use Sys::Syslog" silently change
behaviour.  In my own case, the closelog() function started giving
me new error messages like this one: 

jbr at hurakan:~$ perl -MSys::Syslog -we 'openlog qw(va pid); closelog'
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /usr/lib/perl5/Sys/Syslog.pm line 631.

(That's a second bug.)  Fortunately I spotted the ".../perl5/...";
otherwise it would have been even more confusing.  As it was, "man
Sys::Syslog" was telling me about the wrong version (this package 
contains no manpage - bug three). 

Why does this package even exist?  Do we in fact know that packages
that depend on it such as mailscanner, ps-watcher etc need anything
more than /usr/lib/perl/5.8.8/Sys/Syslog.pm?  If they do, it seems
to me it should mean either

 a) mailscanner depends on perl >> something

or

 b) mailscanner depends on a co-installable fork, Sys::Syslog2

or as an absolute last resort,

 z) some sort of warning is given in the package description that
	these libraries stomp all over perl's namespace

And that's only a mitigating workaround, not a fix.  It will only
help at all if sysadmins routinely scrutinise the long descriptions
on library packages before letting them be automatically installed,
and that's an unreasonable thing to expect.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i586)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18.hurakan
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages libsys-syslog-perl depends on:
ii  perl                          5.8.8-7    Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  perl-base [perlapi-5.8.8]     5.8.8-7    The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

libsys-syslog-perl recommends no packages.

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