On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 01:39:00AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > Certainly not. However, I do think that anything which does not _aim_ > for eventual 100% compliance is useless. > I'm finding it difficult to believe the argument "oh, but this isn't > going to be mandatory". While I can think of a few use cases wherein > not having a machine-parsable format for debian/copyright be mandatory > can be useful, I can think of a lot more use cases wherein a such a > requirement would be a serious improvement to the usefulness of the > actual proposal. Is debhelper useless because it's not mandatory? Are watch files useless because they're not mandatory? Both are tools for normalizing the content of packages in ways that make it easier for third parties to approach the source packages and do useful things with them, with minimal effort and per-package learning curve. I think a machine-readable debian/copyright is something in the same spirit: there are network effects that make it more useful the more widespread it is, but there's no reason it should be mandatory in Debian unless there's a clear consensus in favor of doing so. If you accept that debhelper and watch files are useful without being mandatory, surely you can see that a copyright file format could be useful in the same way? If you *don't* accept that debhelper and watch files are useful to people, then I'm not inclined to try to persuade you that the current plan is useful either. Because, given that I'm *not* trying to make it mandatory, it's not actually relevant to try to convince everyone that it's useful, just to convince a substantial subset of people. > If we're going to make a machine-parsable format, at least make it > something which can be usefully used in all our packages. Certainly, my intent is to make the machine-parseable format something which is *suitable* for use in any package. I welcome input on how best to achieve this. But I see no need to engage naysayers who question the premise that a machine-parseable file has uses. > Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that the following is going to happen: [...] > - A while later, this person (or someone who uses the "something useful" > written by that person) decides that the "oldfashioned" way should go > out, and starts taking steps to make the machine-parsable format > mandatory. debhelper has been around for about a decade or so, and is not mandatory even though it would make QA work quite a bit easier. Mind, people have *proposed* making it mandatory, and have been shot down. Why wouldn't the same happen to proposals to make an unsatisfactory copyright format mandatory? > - Maintainers of large packages have to spend most of their time > updating copyright files because nobody bothered to make the format a > decent one today. Or they could engage the process productively at any time prior to this by helping to fix its shortcomings; or failing that, they could participate in the Policy process to prevent it becoming a standard. And after all, debhelper didn't need a DEP at all in order to come into widespread use, so your worst case scenario could equally well come to pass without ever going through a public discussion process - there are already a fair number of formatted debian/copyright files in the wild based on nothing more than a pretty bad wiki draft... -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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