Re: Homepage in debian/control (was: RFS: queuegraph (take two))

["Eddy Petrişor" <eddy.petrisor@gmail.com>]

On 31/08/06, martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> wrote:
> also sprach Michal Čihař <michal@cihar.com> [2006.08.31.1639 +0200]:
> > Please no, as tools will start to use X-Homepage, you will have to
> > keep compatibility for long time. And if tools won't use it, it
> > makes no use to include it in debian/control. I always wondered
> > why there is no proper support for Homepage:...
>
> Those are the laws of adoption, yes. I don't think compatibility is
> so hard to achieve here, but you are right: we must not act
> prematurely.
>
> Anyway, the reason why there's no proper support is, of course,
> because noone has provided patches yet...

And pathces are not there because there is a herd of people who oppose
violently to adding a Homepage: field to the control file. The main
arguments (which are stupid IMHO) are that:


- the info is already present in the copyright file - so? do I have to
download the package just to get that info?

- the package does not use that info at any time, so it shouldn't be
in control - does the package system *actually* uses the Description
field? Also, adding it now can open the gate to be used by dpkg/apt,
which, in turn, will provide it to the user

- is irrelevant for users to know that info (at which moment did we
become a dictator for what the user needs, I don't recall) - I have
always hated that Debian does not link to upstream and thus
(sometimes) gives the impression that is the creator of the apps since
there are many apps for which the first hit in search engines is the
Debian package name

- there are places where that info can be grabbed from (PTS) - as if
users knew/cared about PTS, and why that info shouldn't be provided on
packages.d.o is beyond my understanding

--
Regards,
EddyP
=============================================
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" A.Einstein