Bug#521810: debian-policy: Document user defined fields starting with X-
Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> writes:
> In this case, Nils came to us because they add an "X-Buildinfo" field
> containing some private VCS information and they didn't want to have the
> warning generated by dpkg-deb (in order to not miss some other important
> warnings). His request made sense.
>
> After having accepted the patch, I wondered where it should be
> documented and Nils pointed me to the policy section. So I asked him to
> submit a bug here.
>
> I fail to see any problem with telling people outside of Debian that
> they can freely use "X-" fields for their private use. You might want to
> say to DD that are inventing new fields, that they should not make them
> start with X- if they ever expect it to be standardized.
Okay, you're right, that request makes sense in context. (I probably
should have read more before responding.)
If you're going to standardize a prefix that's purely for private,
internal use and will never, ever be standardized in any fashion, could I
convince you (and Nils) to use a prefix other than X-? E-mail has
poisoned the well on X-, and now people read it to mean "anything that's
not been standardized yet" and tend to use it for things that they do plan
to standardize later. They're not all going to read the documentation.
For this particular use, how about a prefix of Private- instead? That
makes it much more explicit that if you're not the organization adding
this, you shouldn't expect to understand it or ever use it.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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