Re: RFC: OpenRC as Init System for Debian

[Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>]

On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 10:55:06AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Thu, 10 May 2012, Uoti Urpala wrote:
> > You're pretty much just saying that dpkg and helpers like ucf have
> > implemented better functionality than rpm. I don't see how that's
> > relevant to the discussion.
> 
> The reason why it is relevant is because in the etc-overrides-lib
> model you are unable to trivially merge local changes with upstream or
> packaging changes unless you add additional logic in the postinst to
> handle etc-overrides-lib. Having configuration files in /etc and using
> ucf or similar enables you to deal with this problem easily.
 
In the etc-overrides-lib model, program defaults and local
configuration are effectively being merged every time the program
starts.  I think that this is generally better than either the
dpkg-conffile model (ask the user to resolve) and the rpm-conffile
model (back up local version).

Maybe users ought to be able to request notification when the
defaults change.  But isn't that true regardless of whether those
defaults are written in the configuration file format or as part
of the program itself?

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
                                                              - Albert Camus