Re: "All packages use debconf"

[Colin Walters <walters@cis.ohio-state.edu>]

Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org> writes:

> Well, if they will not, they should be forbidden to do it at
> all. Being there, got bugged to hell to fix it, fixed it.

I'm confused; I think you may have misunderstood my message.  The
algorithm I gave I think allows people to still use dpkg-reconfigure
to rewrite their config files if they wish; but existing conffiles
will not be modified without user confirmation.

If a maintainer chooses not to implement debconf support in such a way
that existing modifications to conffiles will be preserved, then when
someone does dpkg-reconfigure foo, they should get a warning that any
local changes will be blown away, and asked whether or not they want
to continue.

> Modifying user config files without authorization or confirmation is
> EVIL, and should be dealt with swiftly (i.e. severe bug, for
> violating the number one rule: THOU SHALL NOT OVERRIDE THE LOCAL
> ADMIN WISHES).

That's why my algorithm included asking for confirmation.  At least,
that was my intention.