where to maintain DEP8^W autopkgtest spec now

[Bill Allombert]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 09:54:23AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Stefano Zacchiroli <zack at debian.org> writes:
> 
> > Great. So with both you and Antonio OK with the idea, I think we can
> > proceed (see below for a follow-up on collab-maint). And next action is
> > probably on me, to "import" the current DEP8 spec to the debian-policy
> > repo.
> 
> I think Bill actually did object to incorporating specifications that
> don't follow the same policy as the rest of the debian-policy package, but
> I'm not sure how strong that objection is.  I still think it would be a
> good idea to try this as an experiment and see if there's really a problem
> with bugs building up that the Policy maintainers can't resolve.  BTS
> usertags should be useful to keep the streams distinct.

I want to clarify that I object to incorporating specifications in policy
when the policy editors are not empowered to change them using the policy
process. I have no issue with other process (and other editors) being available
as well.

> > Two questions for the debian-policy people:
> 
> > 1) are there strict requirements on the markup used? I speak docbook, so
> >    I can convert to that if needed. But if that is not a requirement,
> >    also keeping something simpler (e.g., markdown) would be nice. It'd
> >    also address Martin's concern about the markup.
> 
> Historically, we've been all over the map.  It would be nice in some
> respects to converge on a single documentation format, but right now we
> are stuck with at least two (DocBook and DebianDoc-SGML) until the
> documents in the second format can be rewritten.
> 
> Personally, I think Markdown is a better format for most purposes, and is
> certainly much easier to write.  I do think the Policy manual itself
> should be written in DocBook, since there we care about cross-referencing,
> good footnote support, section layout, possibly printed output, and so
> forth.  So my inclination would be to incorporate this as Markdown and
> have smaller specs in Markdown and the manuals in DocBook in the long run.
> (Right now we have some stuff in org, which could be productively
> converted to Markdown to reduce the number of different formats we're
> dealing with.)

I have found that DebianDoc-SGML is a nice middle ground between simplicity and
features. Adding more format will make the job of the editors harder in the
long run.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe at debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.