Re: PROPOSAL: Extrafiles (was Re: Conffiles...)
> Hi,
>
> I was thinking about /etc/news/organization. Seems silly to
> have a package just have that file. All kinds of packages depend on
> it -- mailagent, vm, gnus, news-readers, news servers ....
>
> Seems easier to look for the file, and ask the user for an
> organization and create the file if not present.
Except that means code duplication in all these packages.
The dependency mechanism is already there, and the `organization' package
would be totally trivial to write, so why insist that all these other
packages include checks and prompts when they could just put `organisation'
on their Depends: line ?
> Dependencies are good, but this may be an area where a little
> flexibility goes a long way?
I know it seems easier to just add it to the packages in question, but I think
we lose on reliability and maintainability if we do that.
For example, suppose we decided to move `organisation' to be under /usr/share
at some point in the future. I can see how we would arrange this with one
package owning the file, but if all the packages ``own'' it, moving it
becomes very painful.
Cheers, Phil.
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