Subject: bug#353: base-files: `dpkg-vendor --query Parent` isn't set

From: Daniel Abrecht <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2019 20:19:11 +0000

Package: base-files
Version: 10.3+devuan3.1
Severity: serious
Justification: Can cause the build of other packages to fail and may
cause problems for programs checking if a system is a debian based system.

The file `/etc/dpkg/origins/devuan` should contain the following line
Parent: Debian

Without that, `dpkg-vendor --query Parent` won't output anything, it
should return `Debian`.
This is needed for `dpkg-vendor --derives-from Debian` to return true
instead of false.
There are tools which use this to check if a distribution is based on
debian.
A particularly problematic example of such a program is
`dpkg-buildflags`, which is used when building any package which uses
`debhelper`.
As it is now, `dpkg-buildflags` won't set any flags, which can break
package builds.
By adding `Parent: Debian` to `/etc/dpkg/origins/devuan`,
`dpkg-buildflags` would add the same flags debian uses.

However, before adding this, it has to be made sure all devuan specific
packages will still build with this change (btw. the default debian
flags applied.)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 10.0
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.19.58 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8),
LANGUAGE=en_US:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages base-files depends on:
ii  gawk [awk]  1:4.2.1+dfsg-1
ii  mawk [awk]  1.3.3-17+b3

base-files recommends no packages.

base-files suggests no packages.

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/dpkg/origins/devuan changed [not included]

-- no debconf information