Re: Replacing ‘may not’ and ‘shall not’ by ‘must not‘ ?

[Julian Gilbey <julian@d-and-j.net>]

BOn Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 03:11:14PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
>1;2801;0c * Julian Gilbey <julian@d-and-j.net> [111027 12:09]:
> > 3.2: Unchanged,
> 
> So a package without a version is fine?
> 
> > except in final paragraph where "should be converted"
> > is changed to "SHOULD be converted".
> 
> So you suggest to change policy so that this is no longer a bug if not
> done?

An interesting point.  Section 5.3 states that 'Version' is mandatory
in DEBIAN/control; 5.4 that it is mandatory in .dsc, 5.5 that it is
mandatory in .changes.  So it follows that every package MUST have a
version number.  The way policy is currently written is that the first
paragraph of 3.2 is descriptive only.  It certainly could be rewritten
to say "Every package MUST have a version number recorded in its
'Version' control file field...", but I think the descriptive text
works better at this point, as the control file has not yet been
described.  (I don't think that Policy explicitly states that the
version numbers in these different fields must be identical, but then
again, Policy was designed for the humans writing packages.  There
will almost certainly always be such gaps, and it is unclear whether
they need filling.)

Converting Policy to use the RFC terms will most likely not be
error-free, but it will make things a lot easier to follow, and I
believe it will be a significant improvement for the reasons already
discussed.  Policy will never have the watertightness of an RFC, but
that is not its purpose.

   Julian