Re: should vs must
On Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 10:45:32AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> If a guideline has exceptions, then they should be documented in policy.
> There are MUST guidelines that'll have exceptions too (such as where
> djbdns packages will put their files, for example).
>
> There aren't any exceptions for whether programs in /bin and so forth
> should have manpages: they all should. But that doesn't meant we'll
> remove packages just because they don't have them.
>
> Perhaps, to clear this up, we shold have a general cover-all, something
> to the effect of:
>
> If, after consideration, you think that one or more of the
> recommendations (SHOULD) or requirements (MUST) in this document
> don't apply to your package, then you should post to -devel to see
> if there's some alternative way you can do things in your package
> or see if policy should be changed, and document what you've done
> in README.Debian.
This is also a nice piece of advice, but is orthogonal to the
suggestion being made.
The suggestion is that something like the /usr/doc -> /usr/share/doc
transition is a MUST, but that we will record somewhere, as an
appendix to policy or with footnotes in situ that as these are
(relatively) new policy amendments, we should not yet be filing
(normal|RC) bugs against offending packages, i.e., those which do not
*yet* follow the new policy.
This is distinct from the question of packages considering the
directive and actively *deciding* not to follow the policy.
Julian
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Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Queen Mary, Univ. of London
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://people.debian.org/~jdg
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