Bug#108416: Format of short description should be mandated
On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 07:58:36PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 08:19:37PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > Uh, you're using musts for the wrong thing again. Packages aren't going
> > to get thrown out of the distro because of dodgy descriptions, even if
> > they're absolutely, unambiguously in the wrong.
> Where did I say package descriptions "MUST" be accurate?
Where did I use the word "accurate"?
> I said they "MUST" not duplicate the short description of another
> package, and that they "MUST" not exceed 80 characters total.
Sure. Whatever. Packages aren't going to get thrown out in any of those
cases, or anything similar. The only plausibly valid case for a "must"
wrt descriptions is if you can write a short description in such a way
that dpkg won't cope with it.
> This kind of thing is utterly trivial to fix, and if some Release
> Manager^W^Wperson throws out a package instead of fixing this, having
> someone else fix it, or granting it immunity, he needs his head
> examined.
Exactly. Which is why it shouldn't be a MUST. Musts aren't there to
encourage people to fix bugs --- all bugs and policy violations need to
be fixed --- they're to decide which packages to throw out.
If there isn't a clear and overriding reason why a package with that
bug does enough harm to users for it to be removed from the distribution
without another thought, it shouldn't be written as a MUST.
Cheers,
aj, wishing he didn't have to have this argument every other week
--
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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