Re: why the package description bugs should have been "serious" (surprised?)
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 13:39:11 -0500, Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> said:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 07:05:28PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
>> As one who didn't get any of Javier's bugs :), I'd've been happy if
>> he'd filed them with a more sensible severity and made sure that
>> his list of packages was up to date so that a dozen of them didn't
>> end up with unknown-package. But apart from that ...
> I think the bugs should have been filed with severity: serious.
> Think I'm crazy? This opinion is entirely consistent with the
> letter and spririt of the Debian Policy Manual and the definitions
> of our bug severities.
> Policy section 3.4.2 says:
> The description field needs to make sense to anyone, even people
> who have no idea about any of the things the package deals with.
> http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#severities says:
> serious
> is a severe violation of Debian policy (that is, it violates a
> "must" or "required" directive), or, in the package maintainer's
> opinion, makes the package unsuitable for release.
> Only a sophist would argue that "needs to" doesn't mean "must" or
> "required". If your boss says, "Your report needs to be on my desk
> by the end of the day," is he just giving you a gentle suggestion,
> or is he issuing a mandate.
You know, there is a reason that the severities document
specifically mentions the words "must" or "required"; because special
care is taken in inserting additions to policy where these words are
used, as oppsed to the "needs to", which may be a legacy wording.
I understand that imprecision of speech is the norm in these
post modernistic times, but please do not extent such imprecision to
this aspect of the linkage between policy and the bug severity merely
because you have an axe to grind with another luminary (hi aj).
manoj
--
Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber,
North Carolina.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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