I have trouble interpreting the third paragraph of Chapter 3 of the policy, specifically the two sentences marked between ---> <--- below.
I think I know what it means, and I think that I understand why the warning is necessary, but the way it is worded initially confused me. I had to read this carefully several times, and only after recalling that the .deb file format has a control.tgz file inside did I realise what the 'control information file member of the .deb file format' meant. I think the difficulty I have with parsing this phrase is due to the nature of the English language, which allows overloading words with different meaning. "Control information file member" is either a sequence of four nouns or three adjectives and a noun. With parenthesis for binding it should probably read like this: ((control information) file) member Sorry to be picking this nit... I'll provide a suggested rewording to try and be constructive instead of just complaining. ;-) http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html """There is unfortunately a collision of terminology here between control information files and files in the Debian control file format. Throughout this document, a control file refers to a file in the Debian control file format. These files are documented in Control files and their fields, Chapter 5. ---> Only files referred to specifically as control information files are the files included in the control information file member of the .deb file format used by binary packages. Most control information files are not in the Debian control file format. <--- """ My suggested rewording of the marked phrase: The metadata files in a .deb package as described in the previous paragraph are explicitly referred to as 'control information files'; most of them are not in the Debian control file format. Best, Dennis van Dok -- D.H. van Dok :: Software Engineer :: www.nikhef.nl/grid :: Phone +31 20 592 22 28 :: http://www.nikhef.nl/~dennisvd/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/51c9a08f.4040...@nikhef.nl
