On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 05:18:37PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote:
> > "cowsay-offensive". In this situation the "-offensive" package can
> > be Suggested by the core package(s), but should not be Recommended
> > or Depended on, so that it is not installed by default.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
While it seems to be a reasonable explanation for why it should be at most
a suggests, this half-sentence is hardcoding behaviour of a specific
package manager in its current default configuration into policy.
"Installed by default" is something policy is speaking of in the context of
priorities only. In the context of dependency relations it is speaking
only about how reasonable it is for the average user of a package to not
install this other package [which can, but doesn't need to be the same].
Personally, I would vote for just dropping the half sentence as the use of
Suggests follows directly from its definition – as the whole point of a
maintainer introducing an -offensive package is very likely that it is
"perfectly reasonable" to not install it: Why introducing it otherwise?
There might be a point in mentioning "Enhances" here, but that could
come off as offensive if it is suggested explicitly that offenses can
enhance a package… which might even be an argument to drop the entire
dependency relation regulation sentence [as even in the best case it is
a repeat of §7.2 while in many others a prime example of potentially
offensive out-of-context quotes waiting to happen].
(I have no opinion on the topic of -off vs -offensive itself; as a non-
native I was always kept off by those packages due to being put off by
-off – but I will not be pissed off if -offensive takes off. SCNR)
> I second this patch. I suggest we add it as section 3.1.1, i.e., as a
> subsection to 3.1 "The package name".
[As this is the first subsection I wonder if there will soon be many
more "rip-off" naming conventions added like python-*, *-perl, … and if
for style reasons its a good idea to have -offensive be the first]
Best regards
David Kalnischkies
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