Re: Bug#193439: emacsen-common: debian-emacs-policy and package setup in conffile

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> writes:

> On Fri, 16 May 2003 16:37:39 +0200, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> said: 
>
>> One solution would be to modify emacs to look for, before default.el
>> and site-start.el, a /usr/share/emacs/debian-lisp.el and have a
>> /usr/share/emacs/debian-lisp.rc/ directory which corresponds to
>> todays' /etc/emacs/site-start.d/ but is managed entirely by Debian
>> packages.  The files should contain the minimal amount of code
>> required to get a package up'n'running, and should assume the rest
>> of the package is installed.
>
> 	A, this is against policy; users need to be able to modify
>  _all_ configuration matter.

I don't follow this argument.  I agree that users should be able to
modify all configuration matters, but I don't see how it relates to
putting the package bootstrap code under the complete control of the
package itself?

One solution to keep users in full control, with the above idea, would
be to condition the bootstrap code on a variable that can be set by
the user earlier in the startup process.  Another solution would be to
allow users to override the /usr/share/emacs/debian-lisp.rc/foo.el by
creating a /etc/emacs/site-start.d/foo.el file.

> 	Why not just write correct startup files, that know when the
>  package is gone?

If implemented like it was suggested earlier in this thread, the
reason is that it slows down the debian emacs startup time even more.

I'm not saying my solution was the only one.  I'm sure it is possible
to come up with a solution that meets the policy and results in fast
startup time.  And I hope this will be the end result...