On Tue, May 23, 2006 at 04:54:13PM -0500, Bill Allombert wrote: > On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 01:27:41PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > > complaining that no one shopped the license around to -legal before the > > upload (which no one ever has an obligation to do) isn't... > The Debian developer reference states in section 5.1. "New packages" > the process to add new packages to Debian: > Assuming no one else is already working on your prospective package, > you must then submit a bug report (Section 7.1, `Bug reporting') > against the pseudo-package `wnpp' describing your plan to create a new > package, including, but not limiting yourself to, a description of the > package, the license of the prospective package, and the current URL > where it can be downloaded from. > Note the words "the license of the prospective package". > Such process was overlooked here. Sure, this might not be an > "obligation" but overlooking well-respected processes for that reason > alone is not a very efficient way to work. Being technically allowed to > do something do not make it right and do not absolve you from > criticisms. Sorry, but being listed in the dev ref does not make something a "well-respected process". I appreciate the work that the devref editors put into trying to keep that document current on best-practices, but edits to the devref don't enjoy nearly the level of scrutiny that policy does, and I have no expectation that the devref is free of editor bias (or even just plain errors). That's a chicken-and-egg problem, of course; since deviating from recommendations of the devref is not grounds for a bug, there's less pressure to ensure the recommendations it contains are good ones. I refer to Policy on a regular basis, but I don't think I've read the devref since I went through the NM queue. So I guess you can still criticize folks for this if you want to, but I know that my own ongoing notion of "best practices" comes from stuff I learned long ago plus new ideas discussed on this mailing list, not from the devref. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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