misuse of debconf notes

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

FYI, I feel that both of the recently added pcmcia-cs debconf notes
(about 2.4 kernels and network up ordering) are a misuse of the note
datatype, which, as I state in the debconf tutorial, is for "something
important, that the user really should see".

I'm not trying to single you out[1], and I will probably be mailing a
lot of notes like this in the near future. (While I would like to see a
proper fix for the pcmcia-cs network up problem (and it's odd that you
don't mention the cardctl -f option which is another good way to deal
with it), and wonder why you think documenting it is good enough to
warrent closing the bug, that is another topic.)

My main concern right now is that debconf notes are being vastly
overused, and that this will result in a debian install that is so
cluttered with low-value notes that the important stuff is easily
missed. Unless people begin to heed my call to stop overusing debconf
notes, I am going to have to either do a lot of work to come up with a
proper note logging system for them to use, that is designed for this
kind of usage -- or resort to draconion measures such as making debconf
no longer display notes at all, or something similarly distateful. 

I don't really want to do either; I'd rather hope I can convince folks
to start using debconf notes only for what they were designed to be used
for. Thus this mail.

-- 
see shy jo

[1] Also for what it's worth, I applaud your other uses of debconf in
    pcmcia-cs, to prompt about restarting the daemon. That's exactly
    what debconf was designed for, and good job!