Bug#1137424: lintian/dev-ref: false positive embedded-javascript-library

On Sat, May 23, 2026 at 05:29:49PM +0000, Holger Levsen wrote:
> package: lintian, sphinx-common, developers-reference
> tags: help
> 
> hi,
> 
> when running lintian on the developers-reference binary packages
> I get:
> 
> W: developers-reference-de: embedded-javascript-library please use sphinx [usr/share/developers-reference/de/_static/language_data.js]
> W: developers-reference-fr: embedded-javascript-library please use sphinx [usr/share/developers-reference/fr/_static/language_data.js]
> W: developers-reference-it: embedded-javascript-library please use sphinx [usr/share/developers-reference/it/_static/language_data.js]
> W: developers-reference-ja: embedded-javascript-library please use sphinx [usr/share/developers-reference/ja/_static/language_data.js]
> W: developers-reference-ru: embedded-javascript-library please use sphinx [usr/share/developers-reference/ru/_static/language_data.js]
> 
> while dev-ref uses "dh $@ --with sphinxdoc" and this also works in general,
> which eg can be seen in the binary package developers-reference which ships
> /usr/share/developers-reference/_static/language_data.js as a link to 
> /usr/share/javascript/sphinxdoc/1.0/language_data.js
> 
> As you might guess from me assigning this bug to three packages I'm not
> really sure where the bugs are:
> 
> 1.) I think lintian is buggy because it doesn't detect that all those
> developers-reference-$lang packages already use sphinx. So the advice
> "please use sphinx" is clearly wrong.
> 
> 2.) /usr/share/javascript/sphinxdoc/1.0/language_data.js is 14 KB in size,
> while /usr/share/developers-reference/de/_static/language_data.js is just
> 11 KB. No idea if this is to be exspected or a bug somewhere.
> 
> 3.) should I override the lintian warning in dev-ref?

Please don't. Override should be reserved to pathological cases where a package
is a policy exception, not to hide lintian false postive.

Cheers,