Re: Exceptions to policy
Hi,
>>"Ian" == Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
Ian> I'm the original author of most of the core text in the policy
Ian> manual (or was, I may not be). When I wrote it I anticipated
Ian> that people might need to violate the policy in special
Ian> circumstances, and didn't intend people to take it as a set of
Ian> absolute rules.
I submit that the project has changed since you first penned
policy. Moreever, if policy is not a set of rules note: I dropped the
absolute), then I think it has no meaning really. If policy is not
required to be followed at all, I shall just close all policy related
bugs on whimsy (I really haet open bugs, and, since policy is not to
be followed anyway, there is no need for such blots on my page).
Ian> I think that it's valuable to be able to ignore broken policy or
Ian> to defer implementation of policy-under-discussion, and also
Ian> valuable to be able to have exceptions (before they're
Ian> documented, or even which will never be documented).
Strike the last part of that sentence. Yes, it may be valuable
to ignore broken policy, but that means an effort to fix
policy should be undertaken. It may be valuable to have exceptions
which are not yet documented, but only if a resolution to pass them
into policy is started.
Attempting to change policy, at the very least, means that you
have to convince a majority of people on debian-policy; I should not,
on my own, be able to state that all of policy is broken, and hence
my packages shall not follow it.
Methinks we can't be wishy-washy about policy.
manoj
--
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it
was before you came in. -- James Baldwin
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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