Re: It's Huntin' Season
On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> > If the .el files are not supposed to be edited they should not be in
> > /etc
>
> Nice reaction.
And a correct one. Read Debian Policy, which comes before any
sub-policies(emacs, java, perl, python, etc).
> We don't have a choice; that's where they go. Please read Emacs policy.
> That's where we put files that Emacs reads on startup to setup add-on
> packages (e.g. /etc/emacs/site-start.d/).
Fine. So that's where they go. But you must still follow Debian Policy about
files in /etc.
> We discussed this on debian-emacsen last year. See:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-emacsen/2001/debian-emacsen-200102/msg00012.html
So? Does that mean that what was said then can't be changed?
> A lot of maintainers don't mark the files there as confiles because they
> don't expect them to be edited. If you want a second startup.d
> directory outside of /etc for this purpose, change Emacs policy and
> patch the added started code in all Emacsen. Then we can move our code
> out.
Files in /etc are to be marked conffiles. Period. End of story. Have a nice
day.
In other words, just because the emacs policy doesn't say they should be
marked conffiles, doesn't mean they shouldn't be marked conffiles. The emacs
policy is in addition to existing Debian Policy. You can't follow the former
without following the latter.
> But at least discuss this on debian-emacsen instead of spontanously
> submitting serious bug against packages for something that has been the
> custom to do.
It may be the custom. That doesn't mean it is correct.
> How about it, debian-emacsen collegues, is it time to set (or follow)
> policy and mark them _all_ as conffiles? Do we have clear example of
> where this would be a nuisance?
It's a bug, plain and simple. And RC(serious) at that.
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