Re: [Policy-rewrite]: Determining distinct policy rules
On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:10:33 +0000, Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk> said:
> Manoj Srivastava writes ("[Policy-rewrite]: Determining distinct
> policy rules"):
>> While we are all pondering the new policy draft format, the next step
>> to be taken are looking at current policy, and determining what are
>> the distinct rules; and what are the normative parts in that rule.
> I know you're pretty set on this new approach but I just wanted to say
> that I think it's a bad idea.
Separating out normative parts from the rationale of a rule is a
bad idea?
> Policy should be primarily human-readable rather than
> machine-readable. I think the current approach of using what is
> basically a document of prose is fine.
I think this is somewhat of a non-sequitur, since I fail to see
why determining what is and is not normative makes policy less human
readable or more machine readable.
I suspect, though, you are talking about the docbook template;
and again, I might be old fashioned, but I do not consider markup, and
structure, to make a document less readable, on the contrary.
The fact that a well formed XML document with a well known
relax-ng schema is also machine parse-able is a bonus.
> What problem is this new approach supposed to solve ?
The rewrite is to allow us to refactor the policy document into
clearer parts, normative parts are distinct, rationale and explanations
are always present; policy is to be written with mark up that is better
maintained, and has better tools, policy would be made more modular,
allowing derivatives and sub-projects to derive policy documents of
their own more easily, the modularity would allow people to re-organize
the policy document by severity, by subject, chronologically, or by any
other criteria, to improve flow when being read for a specific purpose,
it would allow us to better track copyright in the future, and I am now
running out of breath in this very very long sentence.
manoj
--
... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Reply to: