On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 01:41:06AM +0300, Eddy Petri??or wrote: > >> I don't think any part of packages (description or separate field) are > >> the correct place for the Homepage field. > > > >Yes, that's because it's an unneeded duplication of what's already > >present in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright. The description is meant to > >convey information about where you can find useful things about the > >package, not about where you can download a new version. > > Really? Are you sure? > Think about somebody wanting to NMU because a bug has a fix in > upstream and the current mainatiner is too busy or MIA. How difficult > is it to get to the upstream? Is REALLY hard, belive me! In such a case, the information you need should be in the copyright file. This is linked from the package overview page on packages.debian.org. > What about trying a port on a new arch where is known that some > support for that arch is in the upstream code, but Debian has remained > behind for quite some time because of freeze period or transitions or > whatever. This is not _at_all_ unrealistic. This is also what the copyright file is for. If the info isn't there, that's a bug. > >Of course, there may be cases where including the homepage may be > >beneficial, but most of the time, it's nothing but adding visual > >spam. If the homepage contains nothing but a blurb and download > > That is not so common place. Debian does not (yet) offer the > possibility to see screenshots of an application, the upstream most > probably will have some (if is the case). True, and if the upstream page provides useful information such as screen shots, it's probably a good idea to put it in the description. But in many cases I don't think it adds a lot of value to the Debian description. > I wouldn't like to download a game that has about 200MB and see that > is has crap graphics or it is not the kind of game I expected. That's a good reason that we should work on getting those screenshots into package browsers. ;-) > >links, why would anyone need it in a description that is supposed to > >be _short_? > > Please don't be blind and ignore the non-Debian world. The Debian description _should_ be short. It's simply not a good idea to duplicate information from the copyright file in there for the sake of porters or NMUers. They will find the copyright file. Only if the upstream homepage provides extra stuff is it useful to link it. In many cases it doesn't. (Most games are currently an exception due to screen shots.) > >Thus: shouting on people for "forgetting" the Homepage: field is > >counterproductive IMHO. > > IMHO, your oppinion lacks basic argumentation. There is nothing > couterproductive in adding a link to te Homepage. That's not what he said. He said it's counterproductive to _tell_ people that they should put a homepage field in, because in many cases it's simply not useful. > How hard can that be? As a developer one knows that info very well and is > does not take more than a few seconds to add this info in the control > description field. Yes, but if it just increases the size of the description for no good reason, it's better to leave it out. Thanks, Bas -- I encourage people to send encrypted e-mail (see http://www.gnupg.org). If you have problems reading my e-mail, use a better reader. Please send the central message of e-mails as plain text in the message body, not as HTML and definitely not as MS Word. Please do not use the MS Word format for attachments either. For more information, see http://129.125.47.90/e-mail.html
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