Package: debian-policy Version: 4.5.1.0 Severity: wishlist I think that the Debian policy is unreasonably strict in its manual page requirement. While the common case is that manual pages are small and should be included in the same package, occasionally they are numerous and moving them to a separate package makes sense. Other times, there already is a -common or -doc package and including them there would be possible without increasing the package count. Doing so often allows demoting dependencies to Build-Depends-Indep and thus reducing bootstrap problems.
I therefore think that the policy should explicitly allow manual pages to be shipped in a dependency. We can see that this already is established practice from this non-exhaustive list: * aptitude -> aptitude-common * assaultcube -> assaultcube-data * aumix -> aumix-common * auto-multiple-choice -> auto-multiple-choice-common * binutils -> binutils-common * bitlbee -> bitlbee-common * bup -> bup-doc (recommends) * cpp-10 -> cpp-10-doc (no relation, license re * critterding -> crittering-common * grass-core -> grass-doc * x3270 -> 3270-common Beyond this, I think that a manual page does not warrant a strong dependency given that man-db is not essential. Rather a recommendation should be strong enough. I'm not sure whether this view is universal though. So this is actually asking for two distinct things: * Allow moving manual pages to dependencies * Allow demoting such dependencies to recommends A possible wording in ch-docs.rst could be: Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual -page included in the same package. It is suggested that all +page included in the same package or one of its dependencies or +recommended packages. It is suggested that all configuration files also have a manual page included as well. Manual pages for protocols and other auxiliary things are optional. What do you think? Helmut
