Re: Conflicts between developers and policy
On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 04:06:44AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> > Hi,
> > >>"Philip" == Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> writes:
> >
> > I may have over reacted to being the lone voice crying in the
> > wilderness bit.
>
> I prefer to keep away from such discussions until the air cleaned up a bit,
> but for the sake of the people who count votes here are my 0.02$:
>
> I think the policy should be strictly followed. Exceptions to and errors in
> the policy should be reported as a bug and properly included/fixed. The
> policy should include a rationale where the reason is not obvious. It should
> make clear what parts are required (must) and which are common practice
> (should). I prefer a must over a should.
>
> People should not be angry when policy is wrong for them, but they should
> happily work on the policy. The policy is not something that is forced on
> the developers by some "higher person", but something the developers force
> on *themselves*. You can only experience real freedom if you feel the border.
>
> In short, I agree with Manoj.
>
While I agree with much of what you say about the need for policy to be
clear, I will continue to urge caution when being dictatorial about
policy.
I only disagree with Manoj's characterization of my position. I have never
said "Ignore policy if it suits you". What I have called for is a reasoned
application of "The Policy Statement", which represents the current set of
written policies.
For example, the "stripped binaries" rule in the policy statement is fine
with me. I don't see it as "broken" the way Manoj has suggested, because
we have an unwritten policy against delivering broken packages. I see the
unwritten policy as having a higher priority than the "stripped binaries"
policy as written.
While policy only states that the upstream changlog will be named
changelog, I see the policy of "least surprise" as allowing me to include
a link for ChangeLog so that those who are expecting that will find it. A
strict reading of the Policy Statement might not lead others to this
conclusion, but I don't see that as broken. I am willing to let those more
interested in the location of comas etc.
Luck,
Dwarf
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