Re: Bug#196367: debian-policy: clarify what to do about priority mismatches
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 13:44:37 +0200, Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr> said:
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 01:25:35PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
>> I second the clarifying paragraph. I object to changing to
>> "should". We must fix the wrong priorities once and forever, and
>> keep them sane sane from release to release. If the *current*
>> ftpmasters have not achieved this goal yet, I can't imagine how
>> much they will care if we downgrade this to a simple "should". That
>> will only ensure that we will never have sane priorities.
> Um, as opposed to the current situation, which is essentially the
> same, just silly too?
> That "rule" in the Policy Manual is simply unenforceable, one set of
> ftpmasters or another. There's no reason to try to make a point of
> it.
Nothing in policy is ever enforced (contrary to popular
belief, the cabal's helicopters do not fly for policy infractions),
so this argument is pretty silly.
Policy is a set of rules that package maintainers may follow
to facilitate packages in debian to leverage a common and well
defined infrastructure. Tighter integration that is achievable by
having a policy in the first place allows the packages to be more
useful. Some of these advantages are possible by being able to state
invariants about the distribution:
"Everything in main is DFSG free"
"All configuration files live under /etc"
"Packages at a certain priority do not depend on lower priority packages"
So I, to, object to the changing the must to a should; merely
the fact we have lots of buggy packages does not mean that we should
give up and in double speak promote all these flaws to features.
Policy should not change to amke many packages instantly buggy
does not imply that buggy packages are an excuse for regressions in
policy.
manoj
--
Confirmed bachelor: A man who goes through life without a hitch.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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