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Re: Must and should: new proposal (was: Re: Must and should again)



>>"Julian" == Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk> writes:


 Julian> - MUST and SHOULD change to the universally-recognised IETF meanings

 Julian> - the distinction between RC and non-RC bugs is retained clearly

 Julian> - it's clear what one ought to do to create a "good" Debian package

 Julian> - there's no time component involved

	All the above sound good.

 Julian> - there's no longer a suggestion of using policy as anything other
 Julian>   than a set of guidelines

	Is that really the case? I certainly do not find that I treat
 Policy as a guideline, to be followed or violated at my whimsy; I do
 think of it as a set of rules, and as all rules, there may be
 exceptions.  I would hesitate to declare such an exception myself,
 though, and I'd ask for a ruling on an exception to policy rather than
 deciding that on my own. 

	And when I slip up, and no longer follow policy, there are all
 these people helpfully pointing that out to me in bug reports.

	Perhaps I am getting bogged down in semantics here. But part
 of the value of policy is that I can rely on packages in Debian to
 follow the rules (and not just when the maintainer chose to follow
 the guideline), so that my packages can add value that would not be
 possible in an anarchic environment.

	manoj
-- 
 To be wise, the only thing you really need to know is when to say "I
 don't know."
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C



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