Bug#212814: please clarify 3.4: description of a package
* Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org>, 2014-11-22, 12:22:
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 10:55:44AM +0200, Matthias Klose wrote:
lintian on the other hand does check, if the short description is
repeated in the long description.
The current practise is that the short description should a nominal
phrase (DevRef§6.2.2), and that the extended description should consist
of complete sentences (DevRef§6.2.3). So Lintian is right that you
shouldn't repeat the synopsis exactly in the extended description.
Proposing a change like: "the long description should always be
displayed together with the synopsis, there is no need to repeat the
synopsis in some form in the long description".
NACK
Do not try to continue the single line synopsis into the extended
description.
I think this is mostly unrelated; it was meant to prevent things like
this:
Description: Debian package management system, which provides
infrastructure for handling the installation and removal of Debian
software packages.
(I could swear that we had packages with descriptions like this in the
archive not that long ago, but I can't find any. My memory must be
playing tricks on me.)
The current practice is to not repeat the synopsis and this is enforced
by lintian since 2002, with an E tag:
[...]
Ref: policy 3.4.2
Lintian should probably refer to DevRef§6.2.3 instead.
--
Jakub Wilk
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