On Tue, 15 Jun 1999, Martin Mitchell wrote: I filed a lot of maintonly bug reports against packages, where some man pages are missing, while no bug report about this exists but symlinks to undocumented.7.gz are installed.
> > /usr/man/man1/wav2pat.1.gz tells me, that I should not report the > > missing manpage as a bug, because this "has already been reported as a > > bug". I don't see this bug report in > > http://www.debian.org/Bugs/db/pa/ltimidity.html, so I report it > > myself. > > Please don't link missing manpages to undocumented.7.gz, if there > > isn't already a bug report, because Debian policy says: > Congratulations, you just made the bug reports that validate the > Debian policy. Thanks, that was my intention. > No, I disagree with your interpretation of policy, which is why I am > closing the bugs. Many other packages make such symbolic links to > avoid lintian errors which is also quite valid in my opinion. It's okay to create these links, but it's not okay, that there are no bug reports against this. > Furthermore, you appear to have acted unilaterally in your mass > bug-report postings, with discussion or consultation on > debian-policy or debian-devel. I thought, that the policy is quite clear in that point, that's why I did not ask someone before doing this job. Where don't you see the unclear points in the policy? Please let me quote: | 6.1. Manual pages | ----------------- | | You must install manual pages in `nroff' source form, in appropriate | places under `/usr/man'. You should only use sections 1 to 9 (see the | FSSTND for more details). You must _not_ install a preformatted `cat | page'. | | If no manual page is available for a particular program, utility or | function and this is reported as a bug on debian-bugs, a symbolic link ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's what I did. | from the requested manual page to the undocumented(7) manual page | should be provided. This symbolic link can be created from | `debian/rules' like this: | | ln -s ../man7/undocumented.7.gz \ | debian/tmp/usr/man/man[1-9]/the_requested_manpage.[1-9].gz | | This manpage claims that the lack of a manpage has been reported as a | bug, so you may only do this if it really has (you can report it ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This sentence says clearly, that a bug report should exist, if undocumented.7.gz is used. | yourself, if you like). Do not close the bug report until a proper ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | manpage is available. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ So it wasn't correct, that you closed my bug reports. | You may forward a complaint about a missing manpage to the upstream | authors, and mark the bug as forwarded in the Debian bug tracking | system. Even though the GNU Project do not in general consider the | lack of a manpage to be a bug, we do--if they tell you that they don't | consider it a bug you should leave the bug in our bug tracking system | open anyway. > These bugs shall be closed if reopened, unless a clarification of > policy is sought in the appropriate fora. The policy is quite clear for me, but as long as you see this in a different way, we may discuss this in debian-policy (I sent a Cc there). Ciao Roland -- * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://www.spinnaker.de/ * PGP: 1024/DD08DD6D 2D E7 CC DE D5 8D 78 BE 3C A0 A4 F1 4B 09 CE AF
