Re: Configuration file shadowed?

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>]

severity 379089 serious
thanks

Hi,
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:57:20 +0200, Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> said: 
> Because of this paragraph from the TeX Policy Draft:

 ,---- 4.1 Configuration files
 | In a TeX system, in principle every TeX input file can be changed to
 | change the behavior of the system, and thus be regarded as a
 | configuration file. To prevent inflation of configuration files,
 | packages should not install any TeX input files as conffiles or
 | configuration files. Instead, they should create an empty directory
 | below /etc/texmf/tex and advice users which files are likely places
 | for configuration. It is up to the local admin or individual user to
 | place changed copies in TEXMFSYSCONFIG or TEXMFCONFIG, respectively.
 `----

        While it is true any file can be changed to change behaviour
 for TeX (like things can be changed in /usr/include/foo.h to change
 behaviour of a -dev package), any file with a name *.cnf is meant to
 be a configuration file, and must, in order to meet policy
 requirements, live under /etc. This is no different from
 kernel-package having it's configuration file live in
 /etc/kernel-pkg.conf, even though editing _any_ file in
 /usr/share/kernel-package would change the behaviour of the program.
 By your argument, any interpreted language package is exempt from the
 "configuration in /etc rule", since one may edit the script directly
 in /usr/bin anyway.  I do not think it holds.

        So, while editing /usr/bin/make with a hex editor can change
 behaviour, it is not designed to be a configuration file, but  a
 foo.cnf file is so designed, and these cases should not be conflated
 together. Please change TeX policy to move the configuration files
 (at the very least, files labelled configuration files by being named
 *.cnf) back to /etc.

        I am raising the severity of this bug to serious, since it is
 a violation of a must directive in the Debian technical policy.

        The contents of my  /etc/texmf/web2c/mktex.cnf file are below.

        manoj

# The mktex.cnf file, if it exists, can be used to tailor a setup to
# local conditions.  If you use the mktex scripts, this file can contain
# generic bourne shell code.  However, the C emulations of the scripts
# do not handle anything beyond simple assignment of variables, and doing
# more is not exactly recommended.
#
# To assign variables, use constructs like the examples below, which only
# set unassigned variables.  The scripts may malfunction if you do
# otherwise.
#
# Some examples of what you can the mktex.cnf file for:
: ${MT_FEATURES=appendonlydir:varfonts}
: ${MODE=ljfivemp}
: ${BDPI=600}
# : ${ps_to_pk=gsftopk}

-- 
Save the whales.  Collect the whole set.
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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