Bug#727708: loose ends for init system decision

[Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org>]

Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
> This message is about a transition plan for an init system replacement and
> about how to handle portability to our non-Linux ports.  I'm keeping the
> same subject as Ian's message on the same basic topics and attaching it to
> the same thread, but this is more of a separate writeup than a reply.
[...]
>
> 5. Support for the other init system that was not chosen should be handled
>    in the same fashion, should a team choose to pursue it.  If we select
>    systemd, package maintainers should still be willing to merge
>    contributed upstart configuration, with the understanding that they
>    can't test it and any support is on a best-effort basis only.
>    Similarly, if we select upstart, package maintainers should be willing
>    to merge systemd unit files and to enable upstream systemd support
>    where requested and where it doesn't interfere with the operation of
>    the daemon under upstart, with the understanding that the package
>    maintainer is not committing to testing or directly supporting this
>    configuration.

Thanks all a lot for all your detailed writeups Russ. It is much
appreciated.


I think there is one additional questions that will probably need to be
decided by the tc but hasn't really been discussed yet:

Will packages that explicity depend on a (non-default) init system be
allowed in Debian?


For example, if I want to package a program that depends on a feature
available only in upstart, but systemd was chosen as the default init
system, can I upload this package with a depends on upstart, or will
this be rejected?

If such packages will not be allowed in the archive, does the burden of
making them work with the default init lie on the maintainers of the
default init (to add the missing feature), or the package maintainer (to
work around the features absence if he wants the package in Debian)?


The specific situation that I have in mind is of course when upstart
becomes the default, and gnome becomes dependent on systemd, but I think
the question is larger than just this example.


Best,
-Nikolaus

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