Bug#491985: debian-policy: Should Policy mandate -dbg binary packages to be `Priority: extra'?

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> writes:

> I am a bit uncomfortable with the fact that there are two different
> places where specific rules about priorities are set. I do not
> understand why something that is important enough to be overriden in the
> Debian FTP archive is not important enough to be specified by the Policy
> (although I understand the concept of territories and not competing for
> others's prerogatives).

I think override is a misnomer; the priority in the package is only a hint
to ftp-master on a NEW upload and otherwise is completely ignored.  So
it's not that it's so important to be overridden, it's that the value in
the package is basically meaningless and ftp-master is the only canonical
source of that information.

This is really the only way that it *could* be done if you want all the
priorities to be consistent; NMUing packages to fix priority bugs would be
a nightmare.

> On the other hand, there were already many discussions underlining that
> the distinction between optional and extra packages is somewhat
> dysfunctional, so I guess that the most efficient way to solve the
> problem is a global reform of optional and extra priorities.
>
> I nitpick a bit on this because I think that it is really a time sink.
> For instance, I recently had to object that `optional' was an acceptable
> priority for a scientific package, althoug this package has a much
> narrower audience than other optional packages such as openoffice.
> Having a clear policy that can cope the differences of people's gut
> feelings would save us some time, I think.

I guess my reaction is that this is interesting and arguable, but a
different question than this particular bug.

If you want to propose that Policy document what packages should be which
priority, as opposed to just defining the priorities, that's a much larger
issue than the priority of the debug packages, which are completely
uncontroversial and already fairly well-covered by the existing Policy
wording.  I don't think it's a bad idea, but it's also not my personal
itch, and it's going to be a lot of work to build such a documented
policy, particularly between optional and extra.

If you want to open that bug and raise that, be prepared for the first
reaction to be the ongoing discussion about whether priorities are even
useful outside of defining the base system.

See also #196367, which has quite a lot of the relevant discussion.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>