Proposed changes on menu systems (was: Re: Bug#707851: Let's remove the Debian menu from the Debian Policy ?)

[Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>]

Dear all,

there is an ongoing discussion about the documentation of menu systems on the
debian-policy mailing list, which led to proposed changes and it was suggested
to give them a better coverage.

On part of the proposal is about the description of the FreeDesktop menu system
and its integration on Debian.  I think that we have converged to a good
wording there.

Another part of the proposal is about the description of the Debian menu
system.  As of today (version 3.9.5), the Policy gives it a central importance.
But this ignores the fact that on the majority of the desktop systems running
Debian, the Debian menu is deprecated and hidden.  Indeed, in Jessie it will
not be installed by default anymore by the task-desktop metapackage.  Moreover,
in the discussion that took place on the debian-policy mailing list, there was
hardly some support for the Debian menu altogether.  As a consequence, the
current proposition is to remove the description of the Debian menu from the
Debian policy.

The last part describes how to associate media types with file extensions
through FreeDesktop menu entries, and how this system coexists with the mailcap
system.  As the maintainer of the mime-support package, I would be interested
to switch even more broadly to the FreeDesktop system, but did not yet find
time to implement these changes.  Help is welcome !

See http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=707851#270
for the precise wording of the proposal.

I would welcome constructive comments on the patch proposed.  By constructive I
mean focused (please quote the parts you comment), backed by explanations and,
in case of strong objections, some background about what are the stakes of the
commenter in the maintenance or use of menu systems and media types.

Have a nice week-end,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan