Bug#552757: debian-policy: all caps "must"

[Jakub Wilk]

Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.8.3.0
Severity: minor

"must" is a quite common word in the Debian Policy:

$ zgrep -c -i -w must /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/policy.txt.gz
282

...but only one instance is written in all caps:

$ zgrep -C1 -w MUST /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/policy.txt.gz
      auto-compile that package and also makes it hard for other people to
      reproduce the same binary package, all _required targets_ MUST be
      non-interactive.  At a minimum, required targets are the ones called

For consistency, I'd do s/MUST/must/.

--
Jakub Wilk



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Giacomo A. Catenazzi]

Jakub Wilk wrote:

> "must" is a quite common word in the Debian Policy:

> For consistency, I'd do s/MUST/must/.

But not automatically. On RFC usage "must" is different from "MUST", so
you SHOULD distinguish the normative "MUST" and with the non normative "must".

And BTW if we do such change, we SHOULD do also for the other
all-caps terms: MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHALL, ...).

ciao
        cate



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Jakub Wilk]

* Giacomo A. Catenazzi <cate@...>, 2009-10-29, 10:16:
>>"must" is a quite common word in the Debian Policy:
>
>>For consistency, I'd do s/MUST/must/.
>
>But not automatically. On RFC usage "must" is different from "MUST", so
>you SHOULD distinguish the normative "MUST" and with the non normative
>"must".

The Debian Policy is not an RFC. A lowercased "must" is normative, see
section 1.1.

>And BTW if we do such change, we SHOULD do also for the other
>all-caps terms: MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHALL, ...).

Not much work to do:

$ zgrep -c -E 'MUST|SHALL|SHOULD|MAY|NOT' /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/policy.txt.gz
1

--
Jakub Wilk



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Giacomo A. Catenazzi]

Jakub Wilk wrote:

> * Giacomo A. Catenazzi <cate@...>, 2009-10-29, 10:16:
>>> "must" is a quite common word in the Debian Policy:
>>
>>> For consistency, I'd do s/MUST/must/.
>>
>> But not automatically. On RFC usage "must" is different from "MUST",
>> so you SHOULD distinguish the normative "MUST" and with the non
>> normative "must".
>
> The Debian Policy is not an RFC. A lowercased "must" is normative, see
> section 1.1.

oops. I read your change in the wrong way.

So I agree with your change.


BTW the sentence about must (in 1.1) starts with "In the normative part",
and it is not is not always simple to distinguish the normative with
the informative part (but such problems are being slowly solved, removing
old non-normative text from main text).

ciao
        cate




--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...