Re: Bug#727708: init system coupling etc.
Andreas Barth <aba@ayous.org> writes:
> * Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) [140212 19:00]:
>> Packages should normally support the default Linux init system. There
> I would drop the word "Linux" here - Packages should support our default
> init systems.
That's a much stronger statement than we've made about support for the
non-Linux ports in the past, where they're treated at most like another
release architecture, which means that packages that have never worked on
that architecture are not expected to do so and packages that used to work
but stopped are sometimes removed from just that architecture rather than
ported depending on the situation.
So at least at a first pass, I'm not willing to drop the word Linux here.
I think the subsequent statement about merging patches and adding support
covers the situation. Note that the sysvinit support statement later also
covers this through jessie, and I think it's appropriate to not make too
many statements about the situation after jessie at this time.
>> are some exceptional cases where lack of support for the default
>> init system may be appropriate, such as alternative init system
>> implementations, special-use packages such as managers for
>> non-default init systems, and cooperating groups of packages
>> intended for use with non-default init systems. However, package
>> maintainers should be aware that a requirement for a non-default
>> init system will mean the package will be unusable for most Debian
>> users and should normally be avoided.
> Also, I would think it appropriate if packages should (i.e. in case
> appropriate patches are available) support other init systems, and not
> depend on the default init systems.
I think that's already covered in the paragraph after this one.
>> The Technical Committee offers no advice at this time on requirements
>> or package dependencies on specific init systems after the jessie
>> release. There are too many variables at this point to know what the
>> correct course of action will be.
> I think we could just drop the whole paragraph.
Why do you want to drop it?
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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