[Directly answering to -policy, this does not need to be archived in the
BTS.]
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
Tested patches against all init-script using packages to the BTS.
So from now on, we'll only change Policy after all packages comply with
the proposed changes? We'll never make large progress if it's handled
this way. And how do we implement incompatible changes?
Implementing a proposed change first before modifying Policy makes sense
if we need a special feature in a single package like dpkg or menu
(update-menus) but not if a lot of packages should offer a new feature
like in this case. Implementing status for init scripts is not difficult
in most cases since "start-stop-daemon --test" already offers this
feature. The move to /usr/share/doc or the addition of build
dependencies were also specified in Policy before all packages had a
patch in the BTS.
Isn't this what Standards-Version: is for? Packages specify which
version of the Debian Policy they comply with and at some point in time
the RM defines the minimal Policy version for a release. The severity of
bugs is raised if a package's standards version is too low.
Making this change to Policy does not mean than all packages must change
their init script immediately, or did I misunderstand something?
Stefan