Bug#576594: debian-policy: Unclear "it" in Perl policy 2.2
Lars Wirzenius <lars@catalyst.net.nz> writes:
> http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/perl-policy/ch-perl.html
> says in section 2.2 (Base Package):
> As Perl is currently used by such things as update-alternatives and
> some package maintainer scripts, it must be priority required and
> marked as essential.
> If I am reading the section correctly, the "it" in "it must be" refers
> to perl-base, not Perl as a language. If I am correct, I think it would
> be clearer to replace "it" with "perl-base".
Thanks for pointing that out. The following paragraph was a bit
inaccurate as well. I've made the following change for the next version
of Policy. I believe this is just editorial and doesn't change the
expressed requirements, so I just made it, but please let me know if
anyone sees problems with the new wording.
diff --git a/perl-policy.sgml b/perl-policy.sgml
index 1d26df7..ef1fbe6 100644
--- a/perl-policy.sgml
+++ b/perl-policy.sgml
@@ -103,18 +103,18 @@
the binary and a basic set of modules.
</p>
<p>
- As Perl is currently used by such things as
- <file>update-alternatives</file> and some package maintainer
- scripts, it must be priority <em>required</em> and marked as
- <em>essential</em>.
+ As Perl has been part of the essential set for some time and is
+ used without dependencies by such things as package maintainer
+ scripts, <package>perl-base</package> must be
+ priority <em>required</em> and marked as <em>essential</em>.
</p>
<p>
Note that the <package>perl-base</package> package is intended
only to provide for exceptional circumstances and the contents
- may change. In general only packages which form part of the
- base system should declare a dependency on
- <package>perl-base</package> rather than
- <package>perl</package>.
+ may change. In general, only packages which form part of the
+ base system should use only the facilities
+ of <package>perl-base</package> rather than declaring a
+ dependency on <package>perl</package>.
</p>
</sect>
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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