Bug#189347: stop the "manage with debconf" madness
Date: 16 Apr 2003 19:08:17 -0400
From: Colin Walters <walters@debian.org>
Package: laptop-net
Severity: serious
I just installed "laptop-net", becuase it looked similar to
something I'd like to work on.
The first thing it asked me was whether I wanted to "manage" its
configuration file with Debconf, and it defaulted to "yes"!
This behavior needs to stop, now. It is a violation of Policy, section
11.7.3, which states that local changes must be preserved during a
package upgrade.
Debconf is NOT a license to overwrite user's configurations!
I agree. A simple look at the list of bugs for laptop-net should make
it clear that the configuration management has some real problems.
The root of the problem is that the config files are badly designed --
or rather, not designed at all. This is just programming by example
gone bad.
I have planned to fix this for some time, but it needs a few days of
concentrated effort, and until recently that wasn't possible.
First of all, these questions CANNOT default to yes.
Agreed.
I propose a different solution to this problem, which conforms much
more with policy, while still allowing debconf to be used as much
as possible.
[...]
I'd rather fix this properly; what you suggest is a workaround. What
I consider a proper fix is to redefine the configuration files so that
they can be parsed. I have learned, the hard way, that using shell
scripts for configuration files is a bad idea.
Now, all I need is enough time...
Chris
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