Re: If Debian wants to grow, let it grow. Or: King James reading Anarchy FAQ
On Tue, Mar 23, 1999 at 22:04 +0100, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 23, 1999 at 03:17:35PM +0000, Dave Swegen wrote:
> > >
> > > Right, I see the same problem. Especially, any html or plain ASCII file can
> > > be processed with many many tools (much more then fortune), and has
> > > theremore even more reason to be included, right?
> >
> > Are you honestly telling me that you don't think there is any difference
> > between a run-of-the-mill textfile and a fortune file, either in content or
> > functionality?
>
> Yes, exactly. (Although I find the functionality of a fortune file be very
> limited.)
But amusing :)
>
> Debian can't assume any value of fucntionality. Stuff that has no value to
> you may be interesting to me.
>
> > It seems to me you have got the whole thing arse-backwards:
> > it's not whether there is a program that can read the file (hell, I can
> > read a fortune file with more), but if the file is formatted to be used by
> > a program that provides extra functionality beyond just being able to read
> > it.
>
> Is this your criterion? HTML can be processed by the sgml tool suite.
>
> My real point is that Debian can't can't can't judge about functionality.
That is the core of the entire discussion - my point is that it will have
to somehow to keep the main dist to a reasonable size. OK, how about this
then: Does it fall into category 1 or 3 (which I assume you agree about)?
If no, does it offer anything above what the online version offers? If no,
bung in <new_section> (which I think should be called debian-misc btw).
Of course, as always common sense will have to be used: Putting the oft
cited map data into the main distro (even if there is some sort of viewer
or whatever it uses) would be silly, unless it was worked out
that there is enough space left on a CD.
Also, in the case of informational files, it would, as someone pointed out,
be a good idea to have a section which isn't affected by the
stable/unstable categories, but is in a constant state of stable. As was
pointed out FAQs don't have release critical bugs, and are updated far more
often than debian releases are.
Cheers
Dave
--
Dave Swegen | Debian 2.0 on Linux i386 2.2.3
<dave@recursive.prestel.co.uk> | PGP key available on request
<dsw@debian.org> | Linux: The Choice of a GNU Generation
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