On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 21:12:10 -0400, Joey Hess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> Manoj Srivastava wrote: >> This seems like a good practice kind of recommendation, not an >> requirement, and as such, may be better suited to be included in >> developers reference rather than policy, don't you think? > I agree that policy can't force developers to do that, but policy is > already full of such recommendatons: > 1. > You should not specify a `Pre-Depends' entry for a package > before this has been discussed on the `debian-devel' mailing > list and a consensus about doing that has been reached. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > 2. > You must not tag any packages `essential' before this has been > discussed on the `debian-devel' mailing list and a consensus > about doing that has been reached. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > 3. > You should not tag any packages as belonging to a task before > this has been discussed on the _debian-devel_ mailing list and > a consensus about doing that has been reached. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > 4. > This will use a default sequence number of 20. If it does not > matter when or in which order the `init.d' script is run, use > this default. If it does, then you should talk to the > maintainer of the `sysvinit' package or post to `debian-devel', > and they will help you choose a number. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > 5. > If this case happens, one of the programs must be renamed. The > maintainers should report this to the `debian-devel' mailing > list and try to find a consensus about which program will have > to be renamed. If a consensus cannot be reached, _both_ > programs must be renamed. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > 6. (on perms and users) If necessary you may deviate from the > details below. However, if you do so you must make sure that > what is done is secure and you should try to be as consistent > as possible with the rest of the system. You should probably > also discuss it on `debian-devel' first. OK, the first issue of this kind. > 7. > In this case you should choose an appropriate user or group > name, discussing this on `debian-devel' and checking with the > `base-passwd' maintainer that it is unique and that they do not > wish you to use a statically allocated id instead. Hmm. I am not sure if program behaviour need be changed much with user name/uid changes, but I guess there could be exceptions. > 8. > It is often worthwhile contacting such authors diplomatically > to ask them to modify their license terms. However, this can > be a politically difficult thing to do and you should ask for > advice on the `debian-legal' mailing list first, as explained > below. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > 9. > When in doubt about a copyright, send mail to >> debian-legal@lists.debian.org>. Be prepared to provide us with the > copyright statement. Packaging informatoin, not program behaviour affected by this. Packaging details are determined by developers, and can be easily changed. > Do you plan to move all these to the developer's reference? It would > bloat the developer's reference with references to specific sections > of policy, and leave the policy full of holes with no > recommendations as to a good course of action or even a mention that > a given action is potentially hazardous. You are now talking about putting things into policy that require maintainerrs to change program behaviour to attain similar functionality and features; and all the examples you quote are about packaging details that are under our control completely. Apples and oranges, really. manoj -- "It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." Frank Zappa Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/> 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C