Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 13:21:26 -0700
From: Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>
To: debian-policy@lists.debian.org, debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: weekly policy summary

Here's what's been happening on debian-policy this week.

                               Amendments
                                    
Libtool archive (*.la) files in -dev' packages (#37257)
  * Consensus.
  * Proposed on 4 May 1999 by Ossama Othman; seconded by Marcus
    Brinkmann and Marcelo E. Magallon.
  * .la files aren't useless, libtool can use them and they are
    essential to programs that use libltdl. Proposal is to include .la
    files in -dev packages if they are produced by the build process.
    
Logrotation (#37342)
  * Under discussion for 1 week.
  * Proposed on 28 Apr 1999 by Balazs Scheidler; seconded by Brock
    Rozen, Raphaël Hertzog, Brian Almeida, Marco d'Itri and Joseph
    Carter.
  * Change to using logrotate instead of savelog.
    ( I thought we had a consensus on this, but now people are asking
    if we should make it policy before logrotate is actually tested by
    using it in a few packages. )
    
                                Consensus
                                    
Utmp group proposal (#37389)
  * Consensus.
  * Proposed on 09 May 99 by Wichert Akkerman; seconded by Branden
    Robinson, Joel Klecker, Ossama Othman, Raphael Hertzog, Marco
    d'Itri, Joseph Carter and Karl M. Hegbloom.
  * Create a new utmp group that can modify utmp, programs that were
    previously suid root can be sgid utmp instead.
    ( Amended by Branden Robinson to make wtmp and lastlog also
    writable by group utmp. )
    
                            Active proposals
                                    
A pre-install required space checking mechanism for Debian packages
(#37999)
  * Under discussion.
  * Proposed on 19 May 1999 by Manoj Srivastava.
  * The idea is to enable tools like apt to check if a set of packages
    will fit on a disk, taking various partitions into account. This
    will require adding something like the output of du to the package
    or to the Packages file or to a new file that can be downloaded.
    The details are still being hashed out.
    
Md5sum proposal
  * Under discussion.
  * Proposed on 17 May 1999 by Piotr Roszatycki; seconded by Peter S
    Galbraith, Brock Rozen and Marcus Brinkmann.
  * Require a md5ums file be present in all packages.
    ( Very controversial. )
    
Separate menu policy (like virtual package list) (#37713)
  * Under discussion.
  * Proposed on 15 May 1999 by Chris Waters; seconded by Edward Betts,
    Joey Hess, Joseph Carter and Steve Greenland.
  * Consists of some text to add to policy referring people to an
    external file that has the menu hierarchy in it. It's argued that
    this will make it easier to maintain the menu hierarchy, since
    Joost won't have to release a new menu package to do so. The
    proposed hierarchy is identical to that in #36051 with the
    addition of a top level Help menu and Apps/Databases.
    
Patented software == non-free?
  * Under discussion.
  * Proposed on 10 May 99 by Joseph Carter; seconded by Davide G. M.
    Salvett.
  * Amend policy 2.1.4 to remove reference to patents as something
    that may place software in non-free.
    
Adopt the FHS in place of FSSTND (#37345)
  * Under discussion.
  * Proposed on 09 May 99 by Julian Gilbey; seconded by Joseph Carter,
    Aaron Van Couwenberg and Marco d'Itri.
  * Modify policy to require use of the FHS, with possible exceptions.
    
Software depending on non-US (#37251)
  * Under discussion.
  * Proposed on 06 May 1999 by Marco d'Itri; seconded by Gordon
    Matzigkeit, Joseph Carter, Chris Waters and Davide G. M. Salvett.
  * Proposal to allow software that depends on software in non-us into
    main (currently restricted to contrib).
    ( This may be unnecessary given the recent re-org of non-us. )
    
                            Stalled proposals
                                    
Configuration of packages
  * Stalled for 2 weeks.
  * Proposed on 05 May 1999 by Brederlow.
  * Draft proposal to graft user-friendly and/or automatic
    install-time configuring of packages onto dpkg.
    
Moving the menu hierarchy into debian policy
  * Stalled for 2 weeks.
  * Proposed on 01 May 1999 by Chris Waters; seconded by Joey Hess and
    Karl M. Hegbloom.
  * Identical to proposal #36051, with addition of top-level Help
    menu.
  _________________________________________________________________

Last modified: Fri May 21 13:20:13 1999

-- 
see shy jo


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org