Re: Proposed new POSIX sh policy
On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:09:31 -0700, Bruce Sass <bmsass@shaw.ca> said:
> On Thu November 16 2006 18:23, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:40:20 -0700, Bruce Sass <bmsass@shaw.ca>
>> said:
>> > On Thu November 16 2006 11:06, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
>> >> The problem is that "POSIX feature" is a meaningless term in
>> >> this context.
>> >
>> > I see your point.
>>
>> I don't, but really, I am not sure I ought tobe spending much more
>> time on an arcane reading of this corner case.
> "POSIX feature" could be read as referring to only those features
> mentioned by POSIX, period. I don't think that is a reasonable
> interpretation because it implies that stuff like, say, debconf, is
> out since it is not mentioned by POSIX---but it is ambiguous.
People who are confused by this ought to be gently led away
from the keyboard and held until the people in the padded vans come
to take them away.
As I said before, this is not an exercise in debating, or
coming up with clever little corner cases where policy can be
gleefully misinterpreted. If you really think that debian policy
means that maintainer scripts may not use debconf when it says you
should only rely on constructs blessed by POSIX as the least common
denominator, then you probably should not be allowed to create Debian
packages.
>> The issue, apparently, is that under policy, some shell can come up
>> with all kinds of shadowing of things like debconf. I suggest that
>> if brought before the TC, the TC shall decide that is a bug in the
>> shell. Policy is not supposed to be written to specify all kinds
>> of silly and deliberate malice on the part of shell authors.
> Policy should be clear though.
Clarity is not achieved by increasingly complex sets of
clauses and codicils trying to take into account every little clever
corner case that can be constructed -- that just makes the document
less clear, not more.
I think, as Andi said earlier, we have come to a rough
consensus here. Or close enough, for me. Russ, please go ahead and
create the new version of the patch for your proposal, as you
mentioned in your mail with
Message-ID: <[🔎] 87r6w4kmi7.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu>
manoj
--
Don't you wish that all the people who sincerely want to help you
could agree with each other?
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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