On Sun, Mar 25, 2001 at 10:57:26PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 01:29:49PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > If you're going to do the NMUs anyway, why not just work with the current
> > policy and file normal bugs against the packages, and then NMU them if
> > they're not fixed?
> True enough. I could file bugs and ask people do things without involving
> policy at all.
>
> In fact, perhaps we ought to re-examine why we even have Debian Policy when
> you can just file bugs and ask people to change things, and then NMU their
> packages if they don't do it. Hmmmm...
You say this, and then accuse me of setting up straw men? Geez.
Policy's there so we can document how packages are meant to behave and
keep they consistent; so that you don't end up filing bugs on some
packages to get them split while others file bugs on other packages
to get them joined. It's there so we can document the rationale behind
decisions so we don't have to keep filing bugs about them. It's there
so we can write programs like lintian to double check them.
> > Raising this to a "must" doesn't seem to buy anything at all, at the
> > risk of declaring packages unsuitable for release for no benefit to
> > anyone at all.
> It's clearly of benefit for fonts.dir files to be available for fonts that
> are unpacked to the system. Otherwise you can install the fonts, but the X
> server (or font server) don't even see them.
In case you haven't noticed, I've been restricting my comments exclusively
to the case of a package providing both fonts and other things, which you're
proposing should become a must. In spite of your assumptions, I don't have
any problem with most of your changes.
So this just seems a complete non-sequitur to me.
> > Alternatively, what benefit would anyone see if dosemu, nethack, etc were
> > removed from woody tomorrow?
> Who says they're going to be? Are you going to see to it that they are, as
> release manager?
If this proposal were accepted right now, then those packages would have
RC bugs against them.
If they had RC bugs against them, it's entirely appropriate for them to
be removed from the release, that's what RC *means*.
Since the proposal isn't accepted (and IMO shouldn't be as it stands), that's
obviously a hypothetical case.
> > Hrm. The shared library libfoo/libfoo-dev/libfoo-bin split stuff is also
> > just a "should", and it suffers from the fact that if you don't split
> > them then people won't be able to successfully upgrade when a new version
> > of the library comes out (they'll be forced to remove the old library,
> > and thus break any local programs that use it).
> This has what, exactly, to do with my X policy proposals?
Why should splitting font packages be a stronger requirement than splitting
library packages?
> I'm getting tired of fighting all the straw men you construct.
Then why don't you just think about them and try to address them
rationally, rather than assuming this all some sort of drawn out vendetta
against you?
> All it
> takes for you to jam the brakes on any of my proposals is to reply to them
> with "I object.", and then I have to go to the technical committee.
Which, you'll note, I haven't done, and I'm not planning on doing.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``_Any_ increase in interface difficulty, in exchange for a benefit you
do not understand, cannot perceive, or don't care about, is too much.''
-- John S. Novak, III (The Humblest Man on the Net)
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