On Thu, 2003-06-05 at 16:40, Josip Rodin wrote: > On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 02:58:12PM -0400, Colin Walters wrote: > > The problem is that we have no way to know what encoding an individual > > Debian Changelog entry is in. > > The problem is that my point entirely flew over your head. The point was, > as usual, that Policy is not designed to be a stick to beat people with, > and that it does not have to precede implementation.
You certainly had a strange way of stating this; your initial reply seemed to focus on the size of the code space of the character sets. Anyways, you could consider this as already mostly implemented; the vast majority of changelogs are pure ASCII; there's only a few people using ISO-8859-x and UTF-8. Given the disadvantages of the former, we should standardize on the latter, and that's what this policy amendment is all about. > You can already complain at people who use e.g. Latin 1 in changelogs. Once > a released version of the Policy manual gets a shiny and bright new sentence > saying "Use Unicode" (just in a roundabout, somewhat patronizing kind of > way), I see no reason for it to be either roundabout or patronizing; perhaps you could suggest an alternative wording that would remove these perceived qualities? > the only thing that will change is that if someone complains at people > who use UTF-8 in changelogs, a new retort will be available, "THE POLICY > MADE ME DO IT!!1!", or similar. Why would someone complain? > Oh, and insert another standard rant here on how the fact something hasn't > been done does not automatically imply that those who haven't done it are > obstructionist sadistic bastards. I never implied such, or if I did it was certainly not my intention. I think you've been doing a great job as a policy editor, and I assume that not adding this amendment was just an oversight.
