Sorry about the last message - this should be more readable.
I was looking through a list of new packages from ruari-diff (manual
upgrades are a pita) and many of the priorities seemed weird, despite
being policy-compliant. I eventually summed it up in one problem.
Optional is too broad. All of the X base system, as well as menu is
in optional, despite being core infrastructure. But it's not standard
because it's not part of "a reasonably small but not too limited
character-mode system." OTOH, stuff like cweb-latex, glademm and
xteddy are part of optional (not that I have anything against
those; they're on my system.) As well as everything in between.
I have two non-exclusive suggestions.
One, that developers take "all the software that you might
reasonably want to install if you didn't know what it was
or don't have specialised requirements" more strictly. I
could make an arguement that everything I listed on the
obscure edge of optional was non-policy compliant, as you probably
wouldn't want to install them if you didn't know what they were.
Second, that a level beetween "standard" and "optional" be made
("useful"? "semi-standard"? "infastructure"?). Put all the base
infrastructure here, like most of base X, the rest of TeX,
base Gnome (when stable), and base KDE (when it becomes part of
Debian). (No flamebait intended on Gnome or KDE.)
Either or both of these suggestions would reduce optional's
size and make it more clear as a priority.
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org (alternately dvdeug@hotmail.com)
"I would weep, but my tears have been stolen; I would shout, but my voice
has been taken. Thus, I write." - Tragic Poet