Re: MUST and SHOULD in policy
On 28-Apr-00, 04:10 (CDT), Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:
> Comments, seconds, changes, etc appreciated. (I am following this list,
> btw)
In general, I approve of the concept and the edits you've made.
As a matter of esthetics, I think <em></em> around every occurrance of
"must", "should", and "may" is distracting and ugly. Once you've defined
them (as you did in your the first paragraph you added), there's no need
to scream them. As a practical matter, if you hilight most occurrances,
but miss a few (which we will as we add and edit policy), you raise the
question about the lack of hilights being significant.
Actually, I'd like a better definition than "must/should/may"
corresponding to "important/normal/wishlist" bugs. Just grabbing the
standard verbiage from an RFC should be sufficient.
Specific nitpicks follow.
> + In this manual, the words <em>must</em>, <em>should</em>,
> + and <em>may</em> and the adjectives <em>required</em>,
> + <em>recommended</em> and <em>optional</em> are used to
> + denote the significance of each particular requirement of
> + Debian policy, as follows. Except in exceptional
^ should be a :
> <p>
> - Every package must have exactly one maintainer at a
> - time. This person is responsible that the license of the
> - package's software complies with the policy of the
> - distribution this package is included in.</p>
> + Every package <em>must</em> have a maintainer. This person
> + or group is responsible for the package and should ensure
> + that it is policy compliant.</p>
Isn't this the subject of a long-standing flamewar? I think your change
is de-facto what we do, but slipping it in via a typography change may
lead to discomfort. (I'm *not* trying to restart this flame, and I truly
believe that Anthony is just trying to document existing practice, not
really attempting anything sneaky, but it could be viewed that way.)
> <p>
> Sometimes, a package requires another package to be
> installed <em>and</em> configured before it can be
> - installed. In this case, you'll have to specify a
> - <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> entry for the package.</p>
> + installed. In this case, the package <em>must </em> specify a
> + <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> entry for the other package.</p>
Extra space between "must" and "</em>", altough I think the <em>...</em>
should be removed entirely,
Steve
Reply to: