Re: clarification of statement in packaging manual requested

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

James A. Treacy wrote:
> In section 7 of the Debian Packaging Manual it is stated:
> 
>    Every package should also have an extended description.
> 
> I just wanted clarification on whether the 'should' is intentional
> or whether it should be 'must'. As the package descriptions are
> important it should be mandatory that every package provide one.

The policy manual seems to use `should' and `must' interchangeably for
mandatory things and `should usually' for optional things.

The strongest example of a mandatory `should' is in section 3.1.2:

     As mandated by the FSSTND no package should place any files in
     `/usr/local', either by putting them in the filesystem archive to be
     unpacked by dpkg or by manipulating them in their maintainer scripts.

Richard Braakman