On Sat, Jul 06, 2019 at 08:57:49AM -0400, Jay Hart wrote: > I think its more like when diff asks to keep current config vs new config. I > want to keep my > current config files (or at least those custom portions).
There is no guarantee that your custom changes will still be compatible with newer versions of affected software. Because computers are stupid it is vital to have a human review such changes; sysmerge already reduces the amount of changes to review to a minimum which is great. Before sysmerge, people had to merge configuration files manually! There is really no way of knowing what effect your custom changes will have when merged blindly with a new version. Anything could happen; a no-op change, a syntax error, or some misconfiguration with security implications. The only safe way to do an automatic merge is to discard all local changes, resetting everything to defaults.