Re: Removing system accounts on --purge

[Gergely Nagy <algernon@debian.org>]

> I recently filed a bug (http://bugs.debian.org/249354) on a package
> because I felt it did not clean up after itself.  The problem was the
> package creates a system user account, and does not remove it on purge.
> The maintainer disagrees, and says that system accounts should never be
> removed by packages.  I disagree, but do not feel hugely strongly about
> it - I ask mostly because I also maintain a package which creates a system
> account, only I _do_ remove them on purge.  I am wondering which way
> people think is the correct way to handle this?

I believe that if a package creates a system user it should remove it on
purge. I do NOT want to have random system accounts hanging around just
becuase I tried a package and then purged it. Purge for me means that
the package is completely washed off of my system, like if it was never
ever installed, thus, with system accounts it created.

However, if I only remove a package, then it should not remove the account.

All in all, there MUST be a way to get rid of every part of a package,
that does not involve manual hacking around and removing system account.