Re: Package documentation
On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 04:53:24PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
>
> Packages with RC bugs, packages violating policy requirements (musts)
> get pulled. That's what RC bugs, and MUSTs, are for. They don't have any
> other purpose; they're not there to give us a bigger or sharper stick
> for beating inactive maintainers over the head with, they're not there
> to differentiate between which guidelines are easy and which are hard;
> they're there simply to set an absolute minimum standard for inclusion
> in a Debian release.
No, they are there to create a quality base, not to purge packages. See,
this is one of those half full/empty arguments. I see policy as a way to
make things *better*, not a way to purge things that aren't good enough.
Bugs get fixed.
> I'm running out of ways to say this, and I'm not really convinced shouting
> helps, but this really really needs to sink in.
I'm willing to let this particular argument lie, and revert to just the
argument on the original issue. I doubt either one of us will let it die
:)
To end it, I don't mind if it isn't a MUST. I think it's an important
issue that differences in documentation and actual package setup
be...well, you know, documented. Imagine a user reading docs just to find
out that the directions they have been following do not apply to him. Wrong
docs are worse than no docs at all, IMHO. Suppose a doc says "Use option
--block to make neat blocks on the screen", when in actuality the docs
were not synced with the program, and using --blocks causes random bytes
to be written to your harddrive? Now the program performs as desired,
because that is it's code, but the docs are wrong.
That's an extreme case, but under your setup, that would still be a
normal bug.
I'll leave this be, since I've put in my opinion.
--
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/ Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` bcollins@debian.org -- bcollins@openldap.org -- bcollins@linux.com '
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