Re: Bug#19920: Packages Optional, should be Extra
On Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 06:02:54PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Marcus Brinkmann:
> > b) Make an additional section either between standard and optional or
> > between optional and extra. (Suggestion: "preferred" or "extra", where
> > old extra will be renamed to "special" or so).
> >
> > I don't want to decide which package should be optional and which
> > should belong to the other category. I would prefer to leave it as it
> > is.
>
> I think we should indeed have such a new priority level. I like the
> label `preferred'.
>
> This should include the `best example' of everything, or several
> examples if there is no clear best and both are in widespread use.
> It should not include any electronic texts not related to computers
> (so doc-rfc is OK, but not bible-kjv et al) and no journals.
Agreed. I'm not sure if you are aiming to make "preferred" the new
"optional", or if you want "optional" to be the main section and move
selected packages to "preferred". For simplicity, I would suggest the latter.
But this raises a lot of new questions. A few come to mind very
quickly:
* What should be the text that defines the difference between preferred and
optional (for example, in the policy)?
* What is the definition of "best example"? Technical suprior, most bug
free, most established, easy to use (I don't think this very last should be
the definition. We should have a de*ty preselected bunch of packages esp.
for beginners). Probably a mix of all, and the current state of
maintenance and the activity of the upstream development.
* What about games? I tend to never make them preferred, but fortune? nethack?
What is a Linux system without fortune cookies ;)
* A serious problem: I would like to see manpages and HOWTO's preferred, but
they are available in different languages. Although it could be interpreted
as anglo-centric, the english version should be preferred and the other
languages should be optional. Reason: The english versions are likely the
most complete and up-to-date versions.
Let me include a random wishlist, that should not be taken too seriously. It
is pretty useless in this state of discussion, but maybe a few examples make
clearer for what packages "preferred" is intended.
menu (without doubt important if you use X)
fakeroot (useful to compile kernels(?) and debian packages)
lintian
slang (instead ncurses)
dwww (hopefully a new version will released someday ;)
fortunes
gimp (over xpaint ;)
svgalib (GGI is not packaged yet)
mutt (over elm)
kernel-package (!)
apache (over the other webservers)
gs
gv (over ghostview)
magicfilter
bzip2 (? will we have support for it in the debian tools etc)
lynx
squid
debscape (not yet, but soon, derived from netscape ;)
fvwm2 (as gnome isn't ready yet)
--
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god." Debian GNU/Linux finger brinkmd@
Marcus Brinkmann http://www.debian.org master.debian.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de for public PGP Key
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/ PGP Key ID 36E7CD09
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: