Bug#640263: debian-policy: Clarify policy section 9.9 - Environment variables

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Colin Watson wrote:

> Yes.  How about:
>
> diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
> index bb424ed..3a8bd90 100644
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -7449,8 +7449,8 @@ Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
>  	<heading>Environment variables</heading>
>  
>  	<p>
> -	  A program must not depend on environment variables to get
> -	  reasonable defaults.  (That's because these environment
> +	  A program must not depend on its own custom environment variables
> +	  to get reasonable defaults.  (That's because these environment
>  	  variables would have to be set in a system-wide
>  	  configuration file like <file>/etc/profile</file>, which is not
>  	  supported by all shells.)

Thanks!  With s/environment variables/environment variable settings/ to
make it clearer that this includes cases like PATH=/opt/myprog/bin:$PATH,
sounds good to me, for what its worth.

> My only concern is that people might rules-lawyer about how
> such-and-such an environment variable isn't specific to a single program
> but a group of programs and so is somehow not covered by this; JAVA_HOME
> comes to mind.  Do we need to be explicit about this or is it clear
> enough?

Maybe dropping "its own" would take care of it.  That would make:

	A program must not depend on custom environment variable settings
	to get reasonable defaults.  (That's because ...