Re: RFD: new optional field for 'control'
J. H. M. Dassen writes ("RFD: new optional field for 'control'"):
> At Bruce's request I'm developing a HTML interface to the FTP site
> (experimental pages are accessable at http://www.debian.org/FTP/).
>
> During this development, we found that a 'html-description' (or suchlike)
> field for 'control' would be useful.
> This could be used to enhance the description with pointers to
> documentation.
I'm unconvinced that this is a good idea.
Firstly, control file fields have a limited syntax, since they must be
legal RFC822 header fields. Blank lines and continuation lines not
starting with linear-whitespace are not allowed. If we were going to
do this a separate admin info file (like `conffiles') would be more
appropriate.
However, I think you're trying to solve this problem in the wrong way.
.deb files are intended for use on the user's system, rather than to
provide information used only by the central admin maintainers. We
should not put information in them that the user doesn't need, as it
will simply boat the package files.
If we do need the extra information we could put it in a separate
file, uploaded together with the .deb, the .tar.gz and the .diff.gz.
I'm unconvinced that it's necessary. Remember, we're trying to
concentrate on providing a good operating system, not an
impressive-looking WWW site.
Ian.
Reply to: