Re: cleaning up our task packages

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

[ I'm dropping the -devel cc in the hope of having a useful discussion
  instead of 10 non-useful offtopic discussions. Blah. ]

Chris Waters wrote:
> Ok, here's a slightly better proposal: why not simply handle the task-
> package namespace the same way we do virtual packages and menu
> entries.  That way the actual text to go into policy almost writes
> itself, and the only challenging part of the job would be deciding on
> the initial tasks to seed the official list.

The problem I have with this is illistrated pretty clearly by most of 
this thread.

We introduced the concept of task packages less than a year ago. At that
point everyone who was contributing had a basic idea of the purpose of
task packages and how they were meant to be used, and what was
appropriate for task packages.

Fast forward 8 months to the present, and I'm seeing a huge number of
people who don't have the slightest clue about task packages. Did they
forget so soon? Did they not pay attention last winter? I don't know..

But if we just make it policy that task-foo has to be approved by
debian-devel before it is allowed into debian, I have fears that in
another 8 months everyone is again going to have forgotten what task
packages are for, and this mailing list may be unable to
approve/disapprove packages with any consistency. 

All right, call me pessamistic, but policy is supposed to be there to
help us remember why we do things the way we do, so even if people
forget, the document is there for those who remember to cluebat others
with. :-) That's why I think we need at least a clear statement of what
task packages are for, what is and what is not allowable, put into
policy.

I don't object to requiring new task packages to be approved by the
debian-devel list like virtual packages, but the list will need something
on which to base its decisions.

So how's this:

  Task Packages
  -------------

  Any package whose name begins with `task-' is known as a "task
  package". Task packages are intended to help a new user install a set of
  packages which they need to perform a specific task. Since a list of all
  task packages is presented during new Debian installations, task packages
  should only exist for common tasks for which a user may plausibly want to
  use a newly installed Debian system.

  Before a new task package is added to Debian, the new package must
  be discussed on the debian-devel mailing list to ensure that it meets
  these guidelines. The current list of approved task packages follows:

  ...

(If we accepted this, then we'd use its procedure to discuss each of the
existing task packages, add those that were accepted to the list, and
file bugs on the rest.)

-- 
see shy jo