Code reformatting

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

dpkg is now forked, as you will be aware.

Guillem is continuing to commit to what he and Raphael regard as the
master official dpkg tree, changes which are reformatting,
reorganisation, and so forth.

As a matter of urgency, I would like the him to be asked to stop this
immediately.  It will make any future resolution of this dispute
harder, and while the dispute remains unresolved, it will make it
harder for the two trees to remain in sync.

I would like the Leader to ask him (privately or publicly, as the
Leader wishes) to stop while the TC decides.  I would also like the
Technical Committee to rule that he should refrain, explicitly
overruling.

If necessary, the TC could specify a time limit on this moratorium.
I'm sure a (say) 4-week hiatus in these `improvements' would not cause
any real hardship.


Obviously I won't be formally proposing resolutions, voting, etc., on
this question.  But here is a draft resolution:

  1. No-one who claims to be a dpkg maintainer should
    - make any changes which are intended purely to improve the coding
      style
    - move code about from one file to another unless strictly
      necessary for functional reasons
    - make changes which have a large textual impact to the C code
      in dpkg without first seeking consensus on debian-dpkg amongst
      those claiming to be dpkg maintainer

  2. All changes contrary to 1. made after 2008-03-11T21:55+0000,
     must be reverted immediately.

  3. This applies to all trees which are under their control, insofar
     as those changes are intended to be deployed in Debian.

  4. Insofar as any such person is a dpkg maintainer, we overrule
     them and mandate that they must behave as we ask.

  4. This resolution and its contents expire 4 weeks after
     it is passed.


Ian.