On Sun, Mar 26, 2006 at 05:14:39PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Hello folks, > > Since I just spent some time looking over the discussion and the patch in > lintian bug #339829 to check for the Homepage information in the > description of packages and decided not to apply it, I figured I should > let you know why it made me uncomfortable. This doesn't mean that another > lintian maintainer won't apply it; it's just a personal opinion. > > I know a lot of people are using this (and I even include it on my own > packages), but putting meta-information in a specific format in a > free-form text field is fundamentally a bad idea. Creating a new URL > control header that package management software and other scripts can read > and parse and that has a standardized format is the right thing to do. > Checking for URLs in package descriptions with messy heuristics that one > would have to override if lintian gets the check wrong provokes a bit of > an "ew" reaction. > > I really think the effort would be better spent standardizing an optional > URL field in Policy so that people can start using that, package build > tools can be updated where necessary to handle it, and package viewing and > installation tools can start to look for it. In the meantime, packagers > can start using XBS-URL right now and the right thing will happen. > > It doesn't seem like this would be that controversial and the dpkg format > was designed to be extensible in this fashion. I don't see an open Policy > bug on the issue. I'd rather see people pursue that direction instead. I don't actually disagree, but afaik the "dpkg doesn't have a homepage field" thing has been around forever now.. And the DevRef mentions this best-practice, which essentially nobody knows about. I think its ugly, actually, and you're right, but would like whatever the the "best practices" are to actually be followed, implemented, and realized.
Justin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
