Bug#535577: debian-policy: what to do with user-generated data (databases) on purge
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.8.2.0
Severity: wishlist
Currently, policy is rather unclear on what to do with user-generated
content, such as the content of databases, on purge. Afaics, the only
cases that are mentioned are those of conffiles and log files (both of
which are to be removed at purge).
I would argue that databses and such should NOT be removed on purge
without asking the user explicitly
The immediate cause of me filing this bug, was the apt-get upgrade I
just did, which upgraded postgres-8.3 to postgres-8.4 on my system.
However, postgres apparently doesn't automatically migrate the user
data to the next version, but still postgress-8.3 was marked as
candidate for autoremoval. When I autoremoved the packages (with
--purge), I did't notice postgres-8.3 in the list, an I certainly
didn't expect it to eat my databases without asking me first.
Sure, I should have paid more attention, but I still think that we
shoudl try to protect users like me from themselves liek this, and at
least _ask_ before removing databases (and other data).
Please let me know what you think,
Bas.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-rc3 (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
debian-policy depends on no packages.
debian-policy recommends no packages.
Versions of packages debian-policy suggests:
ii doc-base 0.9.3 utilities to manage online documen
-- no debconf information
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