Re: Bug#172436: this proposal
On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 09:28:42PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 19:13:12 -0500, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> said:
>
> > If the purpose of debian policy is to document existing best
> > practices,
>
> Well, no. That's the developers reference. Policy is a
> document to implement the minimal set of rules that are required for
> improved integration and cooperation of programs -- preferably only
> after these rules have been designed, implemented, tweaked, and known
> to work well.
>
> > then this proposal should be accepted, since that is what
> > it does. Leaving it sitting open for 1 year has only resulted in
> > more or less everything in debian implementing BROWSER without it
> > being in policy.
>
> And there is nothing wrong with best practices not being in
> policy, or packages developing stuff that policy is mum about.
In my experience, the developers reference is not suitable for
best practice about packages. I don't claim Debian policy is suitable
for best practice, either.
One of the reason is that developers reference is not linked to a
mailing list and lack a formal discussion process, so best practices
tend to be discussed in debian-policy.
A solution could be to add a debian-bcp document to debian-policy
package that include the best practices that have been accepted using
the same discussion process as debian-policy, bugs requesting a package
to follow debian-bcp being wishlist by nature.
My purpose is not to increase bureaucracy but provide an easy way for
maintainers to check up the best practice text so they can implement
it in their packages correctly if they so wish.
Cheers,
Bill.
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