Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
On Fri, 26 Nov 2010, jida...@jidanni.org wrote: The Debian Policy Manual should state what the preferred date on manual pages should be, or wishes upstream would make it. There is no need. This is documented in man-pages(7). It is the date the manpage was last revised. Also mention if Debian maintainers should tamper with upstreams' date, or only maybe when they add things to the man page. Maintainer's discretion should be good enough. IMO, one should update it when one changes anything non-minor (i.e. don't bother if it is a typo fix), but as long as the changes are sent upstream, it doesn't matter much. By 'dates' I am talking about the $ man -w cat|xargs zcat|sed 2!d .TH CAT 1 April 2010 GNU coreutils 8.5 User Commands line. Which brings up another item to mention: just month and year OK, or must add date? As long as it is not xx/yy/zz or xx/yy/. Prose text format in the same language as the manpage is good. ISO format (-MM-DD) is good. Japanese format is acceptable (/MM/DD). Anything else will be confusing. And personal discretion is good enough for the decision whether one should bother with days or not. -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
H == Henrique de Moraes Holschuh h...@debian.org writes: H There is no need. This is documented in man-pages(7). Ah, maybe the policy doc should just mention See also man-pages(7). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
X-debbugs-Cc: man...@packages.debian.org, rad...@cox.net Package: debian-policy Version: 3.9.1.0 Severity: wishlist File: /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/policy.html/ch-docs.html The Debian Policy Manual should state what the preferred date on manual pages should be, or wishes upstream would make it. *The date any new version of the package was released? *The date any changes to the man page were made? *The date any significant changes to the man page were made? *etc. etc. Also mention if Debian maintainers should tamper with upstreams' date, or only maybe when they add things to the man page. By 'dates' I am talking about the $ man -w cat|xargs zcat|sed 2!d .TH CAT 1 April 2010 GNU coreutils 8.5 User Commands line. Which brings up another item to mention: just month and year OK, or must add date? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
jida...@jidanni.org writes: The Debian Policy Manual should state what the preferred date on manual pages should be, or wishes upstream would make it. No, I don't believe that it should. I don't think this is something that we need to make technical Policy about. I'll leave this bug open for a bit before closing in case someone else disagrees. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
RA == Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: RA No, I don't believe that it should. I don't think this is something that RA we need to make technical Policy about. RA I'll leave this bug open for a bit before closing in case someone else RA disagrees. Well then please add in the manual that Debian officially has no opinion on dates on the man pages, and one is free to do as one feels fit on the matter. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to gmane.linux.debian.devel.policy as well. jida...@jidanni.org writes: RA == Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: RA No, I don't believe that it should. I don't think this is RA something that we need to make technical Policy about. Well then please add in the manual that Debian officially has no opinion on dates on the man pages, and one is free to do as one feels fit on the matter. Again, there is no good reason to have Policy explicitly say “do as you see fit” on arbitrary topics. Rather, the absence of normative language in Policy already presents that option. Why are you seeking a “the Debian project officially has no opinion on this matter” statement on this, and – importantly – how does your argument not apply to thousands of other matters on which Policy is currently silent? -- \ “Free thought is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition | `\ for democracy.” —Carl Sagan | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
jida...@jidanni.org writes: RA == Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: RA No, I don't believe that it should. I don't think this is something that RA we need to make technical Policy about. RA I'll leave this bug open for a bit before closing in case someone else RA disagrees. Well then please add in the manual that Debian officially has no opinion on dates on the man pages, and one is free to do as one feels fit on the matter. I don't see the need for Policy to say anything about this, personally. This seems rather cosmetic to be addressed in Policy. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#604990: clarify man page dates policy
On Thu, 2010-11-25 at 22:29 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: jida...@jidanni.org writes: RA == Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: RA No, I don't believe that it should. I don't think this is something that RA we need to make technical Policy about. RA I'll leave this bug open for a bit before closing in case someone else RA disagrees. Well then please add in the manual that Debian officially has no opinion on dates on the man pages, and one is free to do as one feels fit on the matter. I don't see the need for Policy to say anything about this, personally. This seems rather cosmetic to be addressed in Policy. Seconded. Cheers, Andrew. -- andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN Unnamed Law: If it happens, it must be possible. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
