Re: Policy as rule of law, or whatever
Hi,
>>"Luis" == Luis Francisco Gonzalez <luisgh@cogs.susx.ac.uk> writes:
Luis> I mantain dmalloc which is a debuggin library. Per policy I
Luis> should have a special package with the shared library (because
Luis> I am not to presume that any other program will never try to
Luis> use this). But in fact this doesn't make sense for this
Luis> library. Unless we want to start adding "overrides" to the
Luis> policy, the state as it is now is much more reasonable. We all
Luis> accept that policy should be followed in almost all cases but
Luis> we don't have to take it with blind faith.
I would prefer that the policy mention that,in rare cases,
there are exceptions to the rule, and mention the debugging libraries
as an example. This would make the policy more novice friendly, and
make it easier for the next person who has a debugging library. It
would also cut down on the bug reports from people who do not know
better.
I think a policy which reflected reality (and real life) and
explicitly acknowledges the fact that most rules have exceptions, is
more palatable anyway.
Perhaps in such cases policy should also mention that "such
exceptions are required only infrequently, and it is recommended that
you mention that your package requires this on debian-devel" or some
such.
manoj
--
"Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough
to topple his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's
aims rather than against them is to attain literacy." Alan Kay,
"Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984
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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