Quoting Manoj Srivastava (srivasta@debian.org): > Actually, policy is usually the last thing that you want to > do, in the general case. Policy is usually stable (well, not quite as > stable as it has been this year, but work seems to be easing up a > trifle, so expect a policy release in a couple of weeks). > > But the idea is that policy documents mature practice, and only > when it is deemed really required. Since so few packages do the > Homepage thing, I would much rather see a working design, supported by > apt and p.d.o, make any changes or tweaks as are needed; and _then_ we > look at policy. If very few packages are using it still, you'll have > to start with a MAY or suggests, anyway. That was my initial idea: have the policy document after the practice became common practice as I remember that you (Manoj, but also often aj) often remind that the Policy is more about documenting common practice and turning it into 'rules' thanestablishing rules before they're really used. However, re-reading the part that describes debian/control fields in the policy, I noticed that they're describe in the *policy* and not in the DevRef. So, my thought when I proposed to begin with the policy was to have it describe that field without making it mandatory (MAY requirement, not MUST requirement) so that lintian/linda can point developers to it when issuing a warning for the missing field. So I roughly propose to: - Add an item to "5.3 Binary package control files -- DEBIAN/control": - Homepage (note the missing "mandatory") - Add a level 3 section to 5.6 List of fields: 5.6.x Homepage The upstream project home page URL. It should preferably contain and http(s) URL linking to a page describing the upstream project with access to the project's resources. This is an optional field Would this better field for an early integration in the policy or do you still recommend that it comes after implementation in aptish tools and adoption by "enough" packages (probably following integration in lintian/linda)?
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