Bug#741573: Two menu systems

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Russ Allbery writes ("Bug#741573: Two menu systems"):
> Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> writes:
> > The underlying question is: who should spend the time writing these
> > files and keeping them up to date ?
...
> > In the case of missing manual pages, the policy (§ 12.1) does not
> > require the package maintainer to write one.
> 
> Hm.  I have never read that section of Policy that way.  I do think that
> is intended to say that the package maintainer should write one, and
> that's the most common interpretation that I've seen in debian-mentors as
> well.  They're not *required*, no, but that's true of any should.

In practice there are lots and lots of packages in the archive with
missing manpages.

The policy goes on at some length about what to do when manpages are
missing.  It doesn't suggest that the right answer is not to upload
the package.

Of course providing a menu entry is far easier than providing a
manpage.  Some would argue it's correspondingly less useful.  I
wouldn't object to some wording in policy which made it clear that the
maintainer isn't required to do the work to provide a menu entry if
they find it inconvenient.

Ian.