Bug#42477: PROPOSED} delay the /usr/doc transition till after potato

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Wed, 4 Aug 1999, Chris Waters wrote:

> Package: debian-policy
> Version: 3.0.1.0
> 
> PROPOSAL (0.9): delay the /usr/share/doc transition
> 
> ABSTRACT: If we start moving the contents of /usr/doc to
> /usr/share/doc at this point, not long before a release, we will
> either have to delay the release (in order to bring all packages up to
> policy 3.0.x compliance) or be forced to release an inconsistent
> system, with some packages using /usr/doc and some using
> /usr/share/doc.

I think there are several wrong assumptions here:

1. "Today is not long before a release".

   The fact is that *nobody* knows when we will get rid of the 200
   important bugs, so saying "at this point" is not very meaningful.

2. We would have to delay a release to meet a "release goal".

   The release manager has clearly stated that FHS compliance is not
   a "release goal". Everybody seemed to agree we should not have
   "release goals" anymore.

3. A system having packages using /usr/doc and /usr/share/doc is
   "inconsistent" and this should be avoided by all means.

   This mix of /usr/share/doc and /usr/doc will happen sooner or later. If
   we delay the move to potato+1 it is almost sure that it will not be
   finished at release time either, because there are too many packages in
   the distribution. In the long term, the chances that potato+1 was fully
   FHS-compliant will be higher if we start the transition right now.

> Unlike most other FHS-mandated changes, an inconsistency here will be
> *highly* visible,

So what? "less" and "cd" support both dirs.

> and probably very annoying to our users.

How can you measure the annoyance?
[ I'm curious about this ].

Are we going to take a step back because of something we can't measure?

Thanks.

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