Re: Must and should again

[Seth Arnold <sarnold@willamette.edu>]

* Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk> [010412 17:03]:
> My suggestion is: change "should" to "must" in policy, and give
> packages some time to migrate (eg., one year) before starting to do
> NMUs.  Then any packages uploaded within the coming year will have to
> satisfy this requirement (or have a lintian override if there's a
> special reason why they don't need to).

I've wondered about this several times in the past. Would it be
possible/feasible/desirable to have an amendment to policy that
specifies a schedule for its own replacement?

I am thinking something along these lines: BEGIN METAFOO Packages
supporting <foo> should register themselves with <metafoo>. After 31 Dec
2001, all text between BEGIN METAFOO and END METAFOO shall be replaced
with "Packages supporting <foo> must register themselves with <metafoo>.
END METAFOO.

While I like the gist of your email (a process to specify this sort of
transition on a grand scale), a hack such as this may be used to the
same effect -- as long as people don't mind two different versions of
policy based on the date.

Comments?

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