This proposal's discussion time is more or less over. Fortunately,
I think we've more or less reached consensus that it's a good thing.
Here's a hopefully final diff, that also corrects some weird markup
slightly earlier. It incorporates Julian Gibley's suggested wording
changes.
--- - Wed Dec 8 21:37:34 1999
+++ policy.sgml Wed Dec 8 21:37:32 1999
@@ -772,9 +772,18 @@
absolutely necessary.
A shared library package must not be tagged
- <em>essential</em>--the dependencies will prevent its
+ <tt>essential</tt>--the dependencies will prevent its
premature removal, and we need to be able to remove it
when it has been superseded.</p>
+
+ <p>
+ Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages
+ while an <tt>essential</tt> package is in an unconfigured
+ state, all <tt>essential</tt> must supply all their core
+ functionality even when unconfigured. If the package cannot
+ satisfy this requirement it should not be tagged as essential,
+ and any packages depending on this package should instead
+ have explicit dependency fields as appropriate.
<p>
You must not tag any packages <tt>essential</tt> before
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG encrypted mail preferred.
``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it
results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.''
-- Linus Torvalds
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