Dear Technical Committee: In Bug #1132204 against src:gprofng-gui, available here: https://bugs.debian.org/1132204 I reported that the top-level Makefile (generated from Makefile.am) does not ensure that debian/gprofng-gui/usr/share/man/man1 exists before trying to create the gp-display-gui.1 symlink to gprofng-display-gui.1, and attached a very simple patch to fix the problem. I found this Makefile bug by building the package on a single-CPU system, but the same build failure happens: - When building the package with DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=parallel=1, which is a supported configuration according to Debian Policy 4.9.1. - When building the package by hand in a chroot with build dependencies and fakeroot already installed: apt-get source gprofng-gui cd gprofng-gui-2.2 debian/rules build fakeroot debian/rules binary The maintainer (Matthias Klose) believes that build failures which happen with DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=parallel=1 are not bugs, just "nice things to have", and downgraded the bug to wishlist, leaving the issue unfixed for seven months now. However, in my view, nothing in Debian Policy establishes a difference between build failures with parallel=1, parallel=2, or any other value, and all of them fall under Policy 4.2, which is the section of Policy mandating that packages must build from source. Therefore, I ask the Committee to rule on the following items: - Whether the complaint in Bug #1132204 is justified, in that a source package that deterministically fails to build with DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=parallel=1 (or on a single-CPU machine) is in breach of Debian Policy 4.2, which states: "If build-time dependencies are specified, it must be possible to build the package and produce working binaries on a system with only essential and build-essential packages installed and also those required to satisfy the build-time relationships (including any implied relationships)." - Whether the proposed patch for Bug #1132204 is a correct fix for the reported failure. - Whether the submitter's proposed solution should be implemented. Note that this request is limited to the determination that the complaint is justified and that the proposed solution should be implemented. I am not asking the Committee to rule on the severity of the bug or on its release-critical status. Note also that I can't just NMU the package as far as the maintainer believes the reported issue is not really a bug, this is what I had to bring the TC. Thanks.