Re: Request for Comments: Standardize enabling/disabling of system services

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

Patrick Schoenfeld wrote:
> * RUN_NEW_SERVICES_AFTER_INSTALL=<yes|no|1|0|true|false>

I dislike the semantics of this because it does not allow for the case 
where for whatever reason (e.g. new system install) you have to reboot 
shortly after installing a package before you had a chance to 
review/change the configuration.

IMO if an admin chooses not to "start after installation", the service 
should also not be started after reboot before the admin has acked 
things. So I'd prefer an implementation that uses NOT_CONFIGURED instead 
of what you're proposing.

An alternative could be a mechanism that checks some flag
"HAS_BEEN_STARTED_BEFORE" (either automatically or manually), but that 
could cause problems later in the lifetime of the system, e.g. when a 
system is restored from backup and those flags are not included (because 
they are too obscure and have been overlooked).

Cheers,
FJP