How to manage shared Debconf questions?

[Ludovic Rousseau <ludovic.rousseau@free.fr>]

Hello,

I maintain the source package pilot-link. Pilot-link is a set tools to
communicate with a Palm PDA (through serial, USB or infra red). This
source package provides a library libpisock8 and a package with command
line tools pilot-link.

The library uses by default the file /dev/pilot. /dev/pilot is, in
general, a symbolic link to the real device (/dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1,
/dev/USB0, etc.)

I also maintain jpilot which is a graphical application to synchronise
with the PDA. jpilot uses libpisock8.

History:
--------

I am not the original DD for pilot-link or for jpilot.

Up to pilot-link 0.11.7-7 the Debconf question was in pilot-link package
(the command line tools package)
In pilot-link 0.11.8-1 I moved the Debconf question in libpisock8 since
it is by this library that /dev/pilot is used.

I then received bug #205059 asking to move the question elsewhere. The
problem described in this bug is that libpisock8 is a dependency for
evolution and only a few people using evolution also use a PDA.

So I moved back the question in the command line tools package. I also
included the Debconf question in the jpilot package. It is needed since
jpilot is linked with libpisock8 but does not need the pilot-link
package. So instaling jpilot, libpisock8 but not pilot-link would not
create the needed /dev/pilot symlink.

I asked the maintainers of packages using libpisock8, and directly
using the PDA features (so not to the evolution package maintainer for
example), to add the Debconf question in their package.  I filed a
whishlist bug on the packages: yank (#218663), mhc-utils (#218664),
kpilot (#218665), gnome-pilot (#218666).

I then have a discussion with the gnome-pilot maintainer (see bug
#218666). The problem is that maintained the same Debconf question is
duplicated work for all the maintainers (and even more work with the
translations).

Possible solutions:
-------------------

A. Have a duplicate question in most package using libpisock8 and
/dev/pilot (solution I pushed).  For example see debconf-devel(7):

  SHARED TEMPLATES
     It's actually possible to have a template and a question that
     are shared among a set of packages. All the packages have to
     provide an identical copy of the template in their templates
     files. This can be useful if a bunch of packages need to ask
     the same question, and you only want to bother the user with it
     once. Shared templates are gener- ally put in the shared/
     pseudo-directory in the debconf template names- pace.

B. Have the question in libpisock8 only and "annoy" users of evolution
but without a PDA.

C. Have a new and small package with only the Debconf question and add a
dependency on this package for concerned packages.

D. Centralise the Debconf question in pilot-link package only and add an
not really needed dependency on this package.


My prefered solution is A but I would like to get comments so I can
"justify" my choice with related packages maintainers I've contacted .

I have checked the Debian Developer's Reference "6.5 Configuration
management with debconf" but it just redirects to debconf-devel(7).

Thanks,

-- 
 Dr. Ludovic Rousseau                        Ludovic.Rousseau@free.fr
 -- Normaliser Unix c'est comme pasteuriser le camembert, L.R. --