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Re: Depends: and commands used in maintainer scripts



Joel Aelwyn <fenton@debian.org> writes:

> On Wed, Jan 26, 2005 at 11:32:19AM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> what is the reason why in the following sentence in Policy:
>> 
>> ,----
>> | The Depends field should also be used if the postinst, prerm or postrm
>> | scripts require the package to be present in order to run.
>> `----
>> 
>> the word "should" is used, not "must"? I'm asking here (not on -policy)
>> because I assume there must be a technical reason for it, but I really
>> can't think of any.
>> 
>> If a package is missing a Depends, and therefore will routinely fail in
>> prerm or postrm --remove, isn't that a release-critical bug?
>
> Because policy, unlike RFCs, does not use normative declarations such as
> SHOULD and MUST (note the reason for uppercasing them in RFCs - to indicate
> that they are, in fact, normative).
> -- 
> Joel Aelwyn <fenton@debian.org>                                       ,''`.

It should still be must so failure to do so is a serious policy
violation (violation of a 'must' or 'required' directive).

Just my 2c,
        Goswin



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