Bug#776557: debian-policy: Please clarify 2.5 'unix heritage >= important'
Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org> writes:
> You rightfull object that 'the expectation is that an experienced Unix
> person' is subjective in nature and leads to contradictory opinion.
> So maybe we should replace the phrase 'If the expectation is ...' by a
> reference to standard that define what UNIX is (POSIX, SUS).
> However, as far as I understand, ed is mandated by POSIX and SUSv4.
> So I do not see how we can keep "important" to refer to UNIX and at the
> same time excluding ed.
Well, the current Policy rule is intentionally subjective. The idea is to
focus on the user experience, not on a particular standard.
Standards always have a problem: once you put something in a standard,
it's nearly impossible to take it out again. POSIX is pretty unlikely to
ever remove ed, even if no one uses it, since there's no way to know
what's using it or what vendor scripts, etc., have built in some
assumption that it is available. And, more practically, because it would
require a lot of work to achieve consensus on removing it, and people
would object just because people always object to this sort of thing in
standards bodies, so no one will bother to do the work of getting it
removed.
I think the question here is whether we want to treat issues like this the
same way, or whether we want to use some other standard of general
usefulness for things in important. Or, put another way, how much weight
do we want to put on standards and on the fact that something has
historically been in important?
If we were building the important set from scratch based on things that
are commonly needed for a minimal system, I doubt we would include ed. I
cannot remember the last time I ran into something that actually uses it.
But we're not, and the package isn't all that large.
Personally, I would tend to lean towards letting the people who work on
the installer and the CD sets and similar space-constrained areas of
Debian (embedded environments, maybe, as well) be the ones who decide the
membership of standard vs. important vs. required rather than having each
individual maintainer roll the dice and apply their own personal
guesswork.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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