Howdy all,
Debian policy has certain words that have normative meanings.
When Debian policy says “must”, that has a normative effect: violations
merit a bug report at severity ‘serious’ or above.
When Debian policy says “should”, there's no mandated minimum severity,
but it generally merits a bug report.
What does policy mean when the “should” is intensified with “certainly”?
Examples include:
3.4.1. The single line synopsis
-------------------------------
The single line synopsis should be kept brief - certainly under 80
characters.
[…]
10.4. Scripts
-------------
[…]
Shell scripts (`sh' and `bash') should almost certainly start with
`set -e' so that errors are detected. […]
Do violations of “should certainly” merit a bug report? How does this
compare with an unmodified “should”? How does it compare with a “must”?
If there's no normative effect, is it reasonable to ask for the sake of
clarity that these modifiers be struck from the wording?
--
\ “I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I |
`\ consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no |
_o__) superhuman authority behind it.” —Albert Einstein, letter, 1953 |
Ben Finney
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