Call for seconds: Policy modifications
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The following is a pre-proposal for changes in the policy document.
It requires two seconds to become a formal proposal. This is a call
for those seconds, and should those seconds be received, a call for
informal discussion of the changes in the proposal. None of the
changes listed are intended to be controversial, and have already been
reported as bugs in the BTS. The deadline for discussion is set at 14
days from receipt of the necessary seconds. If a consensus cannot be
reached within that time, the proposal will be withdrawn.
All Section numbers refer to the Policy Manual.
Part 1: (bug#26461)
The fourth paragraph of Section 2.3.8 ("Maintainer scripts") should be
changed from:
If a package has a vitally important piece of information to pass to
the user (such as "don't run me as I am, you must edit the following
configuration files first or you risk your system emitting
badly-formatted messages"), it should display this in the postinst
script and prompt the user to hit return to acknowledge the
message. Copyright messages do not count as vitally important (they
belong in /usr/doc/copyright); neither do instructions on how to use a
program (these should be in on line documentation, where all the users
can see them).
to:
If a package has a vitally important piece of information to pass to
the user (such as "don't run me as I am, you must edit the following
configuration files first or you risk your system emitting
badly-formatted messages"), it should display this in the postinst
script and prompt the user to hit return to acknowledge the
message. Copyright messages do not count as vitally important (they
belong in /usr/doc/<package-name>/copyright); neither do instructions
on how to use a program (these should be in on line documentation,
where all the users can see them).
Part 2: (bug#25911)
Section 5.5 ("Log files") should be moved to be a subsection of
section 3.3 ("Files"), becoming section 3.3.8, placing it after
"Configuration files". Section 3.3.8 ("Permissions and owners")
should become Section 3.3.9. All subsections of Section 5 after 5.5
should be accordingly moved down to fill in the number gap.
Part 3: (bug#25385)
Section 4.1 ("Architecture specification strings") should be changed
to allow the Hurd operating system. This requires that the segment
reading:
where `<arch>' is one of the following: i386, alpha, arm, m68k,
powerpc, sparc.
be changed to:
where `<arch>' is one of the following: i386, alpha, arm, gnu, m68k,
powerpc, sparc.
Part 4: (bug#21185)
The first paragraph of Section 5.8 ("Changelog files") be changed
from:
This installed file must contain a copy of the debian/changelog file
from your Debian source tree, and a copy of the upstream changelog
file if there is one. They should usually be installed in
/usr/doc/package as changelog.Debian.gz and changelog.gz
respectively.
to:
The installed file must contain a copy of the debian/changelog file
from your Debian source tree, and a copy of the upstream changelog
file if there is one. The debian/changelog file should be installed
in /usr/doc/<package> as changelog.Debian.gz. If the upstream
changelog file is text formatted, it must be accessable as
/usr/doc/<package>/changelog.gz. If the upstream changelog file is
HTML formatted, it must be accessable as
/usr/doc/<package>/changelog.html.gz. If the upstream changelog
files do not already conform to this naming convention, then this may
be achieved by either renaming the files or adding a symbolic link at
the packaging developer's discretion.
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Zed Pobre <zed@va.debian.org> | PGP key on servers, fingerprint on finger
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