"Stefan Tibus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Debian shouldn't _make_ editorial comments like this, but they shouldn't > > dumbly stand by and mirror those made by others with fewer scruples. > > I wouldn't say Debian _made_ that editorial comment, they used it as it > was proposed by some standard.
I didn't say they made it, indeed I said they _shouldn't_ do such a thing. > If you don't like it, go against that one Of course, but ... > but not against Debian. "It's someone else's fault" is a copout. Debian is not known for copping out, it's known for doing the right thing and damn the consequences. Think of it this way: It's a bug from upstream. The text in question doesn't fit the format of the file, it's a lone exception added purely for selfish political reasons by a bully. Deleting it will make the file more self-consistent. If a technical standard has a bug -- describes something hard or impossible to implement, or extremely inconvenient for users -- there may be grumbling and flamewars about it, but in many cases I would say debian would err on the side of `reasonableness' over slavish adherence to the standard (one possible example would be things affected by the POSIX_ME_HARDER, er, I mean, POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable). Is this particular part of the standard crucial for proper operation? E.g., will someone lookup stuff in that file using the exact country description as an index? I don't know, but I'd say it's pretty unlikely -- much more probable is that they'll look for the country name (the part preceding the comma), or use other fields as index to find the country name. Humans of course can cope either way. -Miles -- Is it true that nothing can be known? If so how do we know this? -Woody Allen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]