Re: Bug#223819: RFA: murasaki -- another HotPlug Agent
Scripsit Pierre Machard <pmachard@debian.org>
> Last week a RC bug was filled on this package (#223197). A good solution
> to close this bug is probably to upload a newer version,
No, it seems to be yet another fallout of the linux-kernel-header
transition. There are quite a lot of those at the moment. The
underlying bug here is already known: it's #221543.
> but the lastest developpment version dosen't meet requirements to be
> include in Debian[1].
> [1] : http://packages.qa.debian.org/m/murasaki/news/2.html
I'm not suggesting that you continue to maintain a package that in
your opinion is useless, but the above seems to be based on a
misunderstanding. In the email you link to, you say
| The problem is that a Debian package has not the right to modify
| automaticaly things under the /etc dir. That means that murasaki
| itself is not allowed to write anything in /etc/murasaki/*.
That is not true. The program *being packaged* is allowed to write to
/etc as part of its normal operation. Apart form programs whose *task*
is to change things in /etc (visudo, update-*) the most well-known
cases are ifupdown and mount. It is generally recogized as being
something you ought to do only if you really have no choice, but it is
not *forbidden* by policy.
| -From the Debian policy :
| "Note that a package should not modify a dpkg-handled conffile in its
| maintainer scripts. Doing this will lead to dpkg giving the user
| confusing and possibly dangerous options for conffile update when the
| package is upgraded. "
That has nothing to do with what the program *itself* does to files
that are *not conffiles*.
| Instead of modifing the content of /etc/murasaki/* please could you
| consider moving files under /var/run/murasaki or something like that.
| (/var/cache/murasaki or /var/lib/murasaki, etc...)
If the upsteam source uses filenames that Debian is not happy with, it
is the job of the Debian maintainer to patch the programs such that
the filenames conform to policy. It is well and fine to try to whack
some sense into upstream *also*, but "please change the behavior
such-and-such because Debian says so" is not a good way to foster
respect for Debian and our packaging process. Much better would be "I
use the attached patch to sanitize the behavior of your program in my
Debian package. Please consider applying it to your sources".
--
Henning Makholm "Hele toget raslede imens Sjælland fór forbi."
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