3 1. The Debian Policy Manual states (§9.6) that 'The Debian menu
4 package provides a standard interface between packages providing
5 applications and "menu programs"'. It further states that 'All
6 packages that provide applications that need not be passed any
7 special command line arguments for normal operations should
8 register a menu entry for those applications'.
10 2. All details about menu system requirement are delegated to the
11 Debian Menu sub-policy and Debian Menu System manuals (the
12 "Debian menu system").
14 3. An external specification, the Freedesktop Desktop Entry
15 Specification (the ".desktop spec"), with native support in many
16 X desktop environments, has appeared since the Debian Menu
17 system was developed. The .desktop spec offers a fairly strict
18 super-set of Debian Menu system functionality.
20 4. The .desktop specification has significant technical benefits
21 for users over the Debian menu system. The .desktop
22 specification works together with the freedesktop.org mime type
23 and icon specifications to provide operations expected by
24 desktop users from other environments, such as Mac OS X or
25 Windows. As such, applications must provide a .desktop file to
26 operate well in most desktop environments.
28 5. The Debian Technical Committee has been asked to resolve a
29 dispute between maintainers of Debian Policy over a change that
31 i. incorporates the description of the FreeDesktop menu system
32 and its use in Debian for listing program in desktop menus
33 and associating them with media types
35 ii. softens the wording on the Debian Menu system to reflect that
36 in Jessie it will be neither displayed nor installed by
37 default on standard Debian installations.
44 1. The Technical Committee adopts the changes proposed by Charles
45 Plessy in ba679bff[1].
47 2. Further modifications to the menu policy are allowed using the
48 normal policy modification process.
50 [1]: http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/dbnpolicy/policy.git/commit/?id=ba679bff76f5b9152f43d5bc901b9b3aad257479
52 Using its power under §6.1.5 to offer advice:
54 1. The Technical Committee suggests that the maintainers of the
55 Debian menu package support translating .desktop files of
56 packages which do not provide menu files.
61 1. Considers that the policy procedure resulted in consensus, and
62 adopts the changes proposed by Charles Plessy in ba67bff.[1]
64 2. Further modifications to the menu policy are allowed using the
65 normal policy modification process.
67 [1]: http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/dbnpolicy/policy.git/commit/?id=ba679bff76f5b9152f43d5bc901b9b3aad257479
69 Using its power under §6.1.5 to offer advice:
71 1. The Technical Committee suggests that the maintainers of the
72 Debian menu package support translating .desktop files of
73 packages which do not provide menu files.
78 1. The Technical Committee adopts the changes proposed by Bill
81 2. Further modifications to the menu policy are allowed using the
82 normal policy modification process.
84 [1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?att=1;filename=patch2;bug=707851;msg=446
89 The Technical Committee has reviewed the underlying technical
90 issues around this question and has resolved that Debian will be
91 best served by migrating away from our own Debian Menu System and
92 towards the common Freedesktop Desktop Entry Specification, and
93 that menu information for applications should not be duplicated in
94 two different formats.
96 To encouage this change, we make menu files optional, ask that
97 packages include .desktop files as appropriate and prohibit
98 packages from providing both menu and .desktop files for the same
101 Using its power under §6.1.1 to decide on any matter of technical
102 policy, and its power under §6.1.5 to offer advice:
104 1. The Technical Committee resolves that packages which provide
105 applications customarily designed for use within a desktop
106 environment should provide a .desktop file conforming to the
107 Freedesktop Desktop Entry Specification.
109 2. Packages may provide menu files at the pleasure of the
110 maintainer, but packages providing a .desktop file shall not
111 also provide a menu file for the same application.
113 3. We further resolve that "menu programs" should not depend on the
114 Debian Menu System and should instead rely on .desktop file
115 contents for constructing a list of applications to present to
118 4. We advise the maintainers of the 'menu' package to update that
119 package to reflect this increased focus on .desktop files by
120 modifying the 'menu' package to use .desktop files for the
121 source of menu information in addition to menu files.
123 5. Discussion of the precise relationship between menu file
124 section/hints values and .desktop file Categories values may be
125 defined within the Debian Menu sub-policy and Debian Menu
128 6. The policy change at
130 http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/dbnpolicy/policy.git/commit/?id=ba679bff76
132 would comply with this decision if it were revised to require
133 that no package provide a menu file when it provides a .desktop
134 file for the same application.