Re: Policy consensus on transition when removing initscripts.

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Mark Hindley <leepen@debian.org> writes:

> The most recent proposal[6] for updating the Policy with a requirement
> to use tmpfiles.d(5) states

>  "Init systems other than ``systemd`` should allow providing the same
>  functionality as appropriate for each system, for example managing the
>  directories from the init script shipped by the package."

For those not following the Policy bug, while the wording you mention is
in a patch that in part is addressing use of tmpfiles.d, that paragraph is
not about the tmpfiles.d mechanism.  It's about systemd-specific unit file
configuration such as RuntimeDirectory.

tmpfiles.d itself is easier to handle since systemd-tmpfiles has already
been packaged as a standalone utility for systems using other init
systems.  Other init systems should arrange to invoke it (or some other
implementation that consumes the same configuration files) on boot so that
all Debian packages can use the same configuration files for temporary
file creation.

> This creates an inconsistency whereby non-systemd inits are required to
> provide functionality in their initscript, but that initscript is not
> required to be present.

Note that this wording hasn't been accepted yet, and I'd want to address
the inconsistency you've identified before merging it, probably by
clarifying that this support should be provided *if* other init systems
are supported.

> To avoid breakage of existing systems and facilitate ongoing support for
> non-systemd inits, I would like to establish a consensus for

>  - stating that initscripts remain useful.

>  - requiring a coordinated transition of any initscript a maintainer
>    wishes to drop to the orphan-sysvinit-scripts package and providing the
>    relevant copyright information.

The first point may be outside the scope of Policy, although Policy can
point out as part of the second bullet that there is ongoing work to
support init scripts in Debian.

For the second point, is there an existing policy for how you want init
scripts to be contributed to orphan-sysvinit-scripts that is already
written down somewhere?  (If not, that would be the place to start.)

I think the part of the transition that cannot easily be automated is
ensuring that an appropriate dependency and Replaces relationship is in
place.  This does sound like something that can be usefully documented in
Policy, although I think (at least at first glance; I've not thought about
it a lot) we'd prefer to point to documentation maintained by the
orphan-sysvinit-scripts maintainers rather than putting the entire
procedure directly in Policy.  A bunch of it is going to be about
coordination and communication rather than technical specifics, and I
think it's better for you to be able to change those details as you see
fit without having to update Policy.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>