Bug#1035733: debian -policy: packages must not use dpkg-divert to override default systemd configuraton files
Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> writes:
> On Mon 08 May 2023 at 08:48AM -07, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> In other words, dpkg-divert is primarily for local administrators,
>> non-Policy-compliant local packages that are doing unusual things, and
>> the occasional rare problem that requires special coordination between
>> packages, not something that Debian packages should be doing to other
>> packages without explicit coordination.
>> The rule about systemd and udev files doesn't entirely fall out of that
>> statement,
> Hmm, could you explain why?
It didn't fall out of the above statement because the systemd unit file
may not be shipped with the systemd package, but by some other random
package, so you could have an explicit coordination with the package that
provides the unit file but still be doing something that the systemd
maintainers don't want to support.
I think it does fall out of the somewhat squishier statement that you
shouldn't use diversions when there's some other available mechanism to
accomplish the same goal.
> I don't mean to dismiss the significant impact on the systemd
> maintainers that's being claimed, but specifically calling out udev and
> systemd configuration files seems strangely specific, for Policy, to me.
I think they're a special case of the general rule that if there's some
mechanism other than diversions to do what you want, you should use it
instead, but it's such a common special case that we should call it out
explicitly, particularly since a lot of people right now don't seem to
know about masking or drop-ins. So in other words, I think I basically
agree with this, but I think it's worth spending some words on systemd and
udev, more as a communication strategy than anything else.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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