Bug#98291: being truthful about the FHS and us
Ok, here, as promised, is the final draft.
I've let this idle for a bit while I was doing other things, so here's
a quick recap for those who missed or forgot the original discussion.
Policy says you must follow the FHS, period, and then goes on to say
you must do things (the /usr/doc symlink, for example) which violate
the FHS. This is a logical contradiction, and potentially confusing
(not to mention aesthetically unpleasing).
My original idea was to make FHS-compatibility (rather than strict
compliance) mandatory, but as aj and others pointed out, this leaves
too much scope for things we *don't* want to allow.
I also wanted to mention that packages may violate the FHS if they
*absolutely* need to for some reason, but aj pointed out that packages
may violate policy if they absolutely need to in any case. (If
something in policy causes a package to break, that's a bug in
policy.)
Thus we came up with the following, which aj has said he will
definitely second, and which I hope others who participated in the
discussion will second as well. This is a fix to a minor but very
genuine problem in policy, and I hope we can get it accepted as soon
as possible. Please send your seconds ASAP. Thanks.
--- debian-policy.sgml~ Mon May 21 10:45:51 2001
+++ debian-policy.sgml Thu Jun 7 11:59:58 2001
@@ -3983,8 +3983,9 @@
<p>
The location of all installed files and directories must
- comply with the Linux File system Hierarchy Standard
- (FHS). The latest version of this document can be found
+ comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS),
+ except where doing so would violate other terms of Debian
+ Policy. The latest version of this document can be found
alongside this manual or on
<url id="http://www.pathname.com/fhs/";>.
Specific questions about following the standard may be
--
Chris Waters | Pneumonoultra- osis is too long
xtifr@debian.org | microscopicsilico- to fit into a single
or xtifr@speakeasy.net | volcaniconi- standalone haiku
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