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Re: Name for configuration packages



On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 10:55:44PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> I have a bunch of packages where I have split the configuration into
> dedicated packages, allowing the configuration to be completely
> exchanged without having to touch the actual program. This greatly
> eases maintaining multiple servers since I can rely on dpkg conffile
> handling even for locally changed files.
> 
> I usually have the main package foo depend on foo-config, and one or
> more packages foo-config-$SITE provide foo-config.
> 
> I am now thinking about putting one of these packages in Debian, and I
> will need to upload "default" configuration packages.

My opinion is that you should not do this at all:  Put the
configuration files in the main package, as with any other package.

Overloading package selection to perform configuration sets a bad
precedent.  It may serve for your local purposes, but I don't
believe it is a good idea for Debian.  It would be better to improve
the normal configuration-handling facilities (dpkg, debconf, uct,
etc) to solve any problems you have.

Andrew



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