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Re: ideas underlying policy



Hi,

	Actually, when Debian was formed it had only one developer,
 and no one could contribute packages, since that would have diluted
 the distributions tight integration. This bazaar thing has evolved. 

	"If you find yourself having to do something which seems to
	conflict with policy -- where it seems like you should do
	things differently, 
 Please take a moment and reflect on the issue. The policy document
 has not been thrown together trivially, it has been the concerted
 effort of a number of people, who may well have spent weeks
 discussion each little point. If after careful review you still think
 that Policy happens to be flawed in some way, then please 
	include a comment to that effect in your package's change log,
	and please file a bug report against policy. 

	I like the rationale. I would add: Policy is the distilled
 wisdome and and experience of a number of people who have worked
 together to create the policy documents, and is meant to be something
 that one may depend on to have been thought through, for the most
 part (since the people who created this are only human, policy is not
 flawless).

	There are issues for which there are several equally valid
 technocal solutions, but a coherent distribution has to make a
 decision between competeing solutions -- conventions (like the
 location of the http server document root) that help different
 packages in the distribution cooperate and depend on each other. The
 policy documents are also a compendia of such conventions critical
 for a cohesive OS.


	manoj
-- 
 "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from
 President's and Kings to the scum of the earth..." Lily Tomlin
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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