Re: The case for rewriting the Policy document (Debconf7 proposal)
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> writes:
> This proposal is based on part of a talk I gave at debconf7, and
> is about reorganizing the policy document(s). The current policy
> document grew organically from the dpkg documentation, and the
> packaging manual, and has grown bloated, and contains material that
> does not sanely belong in policy. Policy needs to come closer to
> release goals. We really should not need a release team RC criteria
> list.
I'm in favor, as Manoj already knows. My primary concern is around
keeping the lights on while we work on a rewrite so that the existing
Policy document doesn't remain stalled, and on the transition period, but
I think those are managable problems.
> I propose that we start creating a new set of policy manuals,
> using Docbook instead of Debiandoc. Docbook is popular, well
> maintained, allows indices and cross references, and has many rendering
> formats.
I think it's very important for this that someone who knows Docbook well
comes up with a style guide and a list of tags that we should actually
use. Docbook has so many tags that I get lost every time I look at its
documentation, and I expect we would only need to use a tenth of them.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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