Re: What’s the use for Standards-Version?
Le Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 09:22:45PM -0700, Russ Allbery a écrit :
>
> ? I just use zless on that file and stop reading when I get to the
> current Standards-Version of the package, but that would automate it.
>
> This is, indeed, exactly the use of the Standards-Version field that both
> Manoj and I are advocating.
Hi Russ,
this is also how I use it, but let's look at the Policy:
5.6.11 Standards-Version
The most recent version of the standards (the policy manual and associated
texts) with which the package complies.
This conveys the impression that the field is there to reflect a fact, rather
than being a convenience bookmark for the maintainer. Moreover, with this
definition, the field becomes outdated each time a new Policy is released
(except for minor patch levels). This very clearly qualifies it as meta-data,
and in the future, it woud benefit of being treated as such.
I have checked the sources of apt and dpkg and they do not use the
Standards-Version for any operation other than propagating it. So on that side
of our infrastructure, making it optional would be trivial. On the other end of
the pipeline, our tracking systems would need to be taught that the field can
be absent, and in the long term to be taught where it can be retreived; probably
at the same place as the VCS fields.
Like Section, Priority and Urgency, Standards-Version is only recommended and
not mantatory. I think that in the future, such meta-data could be untied from
the control file. In line with the other thread about meta-data this month, I
hope that within the Debian Med and Science projects we will have success in
experimenting a workflow to manage user-oriented metadata through the VCS where
source packages are stored, which would could be later proposed to be extended
to developer-oriented metadata.
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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