Jonathan Nieder <jrnie...@gmail.com> writes:
> Policy ยง10.7.4 explains:
> If it is desirable for [...] packages to share a configuration
> file and for all of the related packages to be able to modify
> that configuration file, then the following should be done:
> [...]
> ii. The owning package should also provide a program that the
> other packages may use to modify the configuration file.
> iii. The related packages must use the provided program to make
> any desired modifications to the configuration file. [...]
> This advice suggests a few questions. Are these requirements
> release-critical?
It is in the sense that if there is no such program, you don't get to
modify the configuration file.
> (Item iii says "must" but the opening to the list says it describes what
> "should" be done.) Is it be more important ("must" vs "should") that
> packages use the provided program than that the program exist?
You're misunderstanding the intent. There are two possibilities: a
program exists, in which case you must use it, or no such program exists,
in which case you're not permitted to modify the configuration file,
period. The "should" is to provide the facility to make modifications; in
the absence of that, all other packages are just out of luck.
> Use "should" instead of "must" throughout and state clearly that
> packagers should not directly modify other packages' configuration
> files regardless of whether a tool for indirectly modifying is
> provided.
NACK.
We may have existing special cases where we've ignored this problem for
reasons of expediency, but I don't think that's a good reason to water
down the requirement globally.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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