Bug#88111: policy should not dictate implementation details

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <gaia@iki.fi>]

On 20010301T152221+0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> I'll make this a proposal then:
> 
>   Section 5.2 of policy currently dictates that debian/rules has to be
>   a makefile. While this is good practice, the only thing that is essential
>   is that it is an executable that will respond to the build, clean,
>   binary, binary-arch and binary-indep targets.

That is false.  Currently policy defines the interface of a debian/rules
and even some of its behaviour by saying that it is a Makefile.  If we
decide to remove that requirement, we will need to specify its interface
and behaviour another way.

>   As such I propose that the statement that debian/rules has be to a
>   makefile be removed.

I object to this proposal, since it leaves debian/rules interface and
behaviour unspecified in many instances.  And there is already another
proposal about this.

-- 
%%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % gaia@iki.fi % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%%