On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 01:05:08PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote: > On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:25:07 -0700, Paul E Condon > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >My understanding of the issue in the original post of this thread is > >that situations can arrise where Debian policy forbids including some > >package on a CD in a way that the poster thinks it should be > >included. I suppose he is an advocate of some package and wants it to > >have a better position on the supermarket shelf. The answer I'm > >getting to my questions seems to support the position that priorities > >is a somewhat arbitrary system for including some packages and > >excluding others. > > No. The original problem is that currently policy requires helper > packages that are needed by an important package to be important as > well. This causes these helper packages to be installed by dselect > even if they're not needed. > > In fact, I am an advocate and a co-maintainer of a package that > already has a very prominent place on the supermarket shelf, and I > would like to be allowed to place some helpers on a less prominent > place so that they're not accidentally bought by somebody who does not > want the main product. >
I apologize for misstating your position. I got it as nearly backwards as is possible in an imperfect world. Yet, you are of the position that policy, as currently stated, treats your collection of packages in a way that you feel is sub-optimal for both the packages and for the distribution. On this, my new assertion of your position, I think we can agree. I incline towards a view that the ranking of packages that is currently mandated is more fundementally flawed than I understood from your original argument. If your argument fails to convince some people, perhaps it is because your proposal draws attention to a problem without really solving it. >From my experience as a user, package categories complicate user understanding without any apparent benefit. When I first read about them I was puzzled as to why they exist. My current thinking is that they somehow simplify the process of placing packages on CDs in the official release. It is good to have things arranged in such a way that a new user can get started with just one CD, and it is good to have some heuristics for finding such an arrangement. But I wonder; should these heuristics be part of a grand policy? Again, I'm sorry for having misrepresented your position. Please, excuse me. -- Paul E Condon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
