Bug#727708: Call for votes on init system resolution

["Didier 'OdyX' Raboud" <odyx@debian.org>]

Hi Steve,

Le vendredi, 7 février 2014, 13.07:54 Steve Langasek a écrit :
> Here's what I think is the right technical policy, that we should be
> addressing with this resolution.
> 
>  - Packages in jessie must retain compatibility with sysvinit startup
>    interfaces (i.e., init scripts in /etc/init.d).
>  - Packages can require other interfaces for their operation that are
>    provided by an init system implementation, but which are unrelated
> to service management; however, these requirements must be expressed
> in a way that does not tie them to a single init system package. 
> E.g., a package that uses the logind dbus interfaces is absolutely
> free to do so, but must not express this usage as 'Depends: systemd'.
>  - The TC should make no ruling at this time regarding releases beyond
> jessie.

I'm quite surprised by this proposal: given the state of the 
discussions, I have the impression that it mostly is the actual 
consensus for jessie. More specifically: 

* "packages in jessie must retain compatibility with sysvinit startup
  interfaces" was not challenged given the constraints of stable-
  -to-stable upgrades.
* "packages can require other interfaces for their operation that are
  provided by an init system implementation (…) E.g., a package that
  uses the logind dbus interfaces is absolutely free to do so, but must
  not express this usage as 'Depends: systemd'." I don't have the
  impression that either the logind interface maintainers or the logind
  consumer maintainers wouldn't have reached that consensus point by
  themselves. The only blocker that I remember was that people didn't
  want to invest time on ironing details without knowing what the
  default init would be.

A resolution along these lines assumes that the relevant maintainers 
would fail to reach these consensual points by themselves: it would 
unnecessarily paternalize them and would show little trust in said 
maintainers.

Sorry to insist, but the "relevant maintainers" (which, in these cases, 
wouldn't be the policy editors, but systemd maintainers probably) 
haven't had a chance to make initial decisions and I think the TC 
wouldn't be acting as "last resort" here, but as "preemptive early 
resort", which is uncalled for as far as I'm concerned.

That said, reformulating the resolution to read as an advice (aka "we 
expect maintainers of packages in jessie to retain compatibility …"), 
and deciding it under 6.1.5 would be totally fine.

Cheers, OdyX