Re: Bug#21969: debian-policy: needs clarification about Standards-Version
Hi,
>>"Raul" == Raul Miller <rdm@test.legislate.com> writes:
Raul> Policy SHOULD be followed, in the general case. I'd even agree
Raul> that in a large number of specific cases (but not all), policy
Raul> MUST be followed. You're the one that has decided that this
Raul> means that it SHOULD NOT be followed.
Well, at least that is a starting point.
Raul> I've mostly agreed with (Buddha and Philip's) statement you
Raul> quoted a few days ago which talks about what to do when policy
Raul> doesn't apply properly. I think it has a weakness: in creating
Raul> the rules for how "debian-policy" is or isn't followed, no
Raul> policy has been formed about when to go beyond "debian-policy".
Umm, do you mean the debian-policy mailing list here, or do
you refer to the set of documents loosely referred to as the "Policy
Documents"? If the former, then I am quite confused.
Raul> As you've probably gathered, I'm a little uncomfortable with a
Raul> blanket statement which claims to convert policy to some rules
Raul> that always applies to all cases. But if we can come up with a
Raul> good statement for how we can recognize when the rules don't
Raul> take us where we want, I can live with that.
I would be willing to say that we leave determination of the
point when following policy is detrimental to the package to the
maintainers themselves; so Dale could decide that stripping the
binaries is detriental to his package.
At thsi point, one should point this out to the maintainer
community at large (in case another person is in the same boat and
has not yet realized that policy is broken), and, since people are
human and may err, and the maintainer who originally thought the
policy is flawed may be wrong, and quite possibly the colective
intellect of the maintainer community may prove helpful.
I think that we can't come up with a set of tests a priori to
determine how to determine when the rules ("Policy Document") are
flawed, and we trust the judgement of the develoers when they think
it is time to examine aspects of the Policy Documents.
In any case, the Policy documents should be amended so that
the rest of the maintainers benefit from it as well.
manoj
--
Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs
painting. Billy Rose
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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