Re: Bug#643602: update-alternatives --set should be disallowed from maintainer scripts

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

tag 643602 - wontfix
reassign 643602 lintian
thanks

On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 06:16:47 +0200, Guillem Jover wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-09-27 at 16:26:10 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > I've recently spent time having to clean up after a package which earlier in
> > its history called update-alternatives --set from a maintainer script to try
> > to override a "wrong" alternative... instead of simply removing the wrong
> > alternative from the system.
> > 
> > This is problematic, of course, because now it's impossible to distinguish
> > between an alternative that's manually set because the user set it, vs. one
> > that's manually set because the package set it.
> > 
> > I don't think there's any justification for a package ever calling u-a --set
> > from a maintainer script.  Therefore I propose that this command abort if
> > $DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_PACKAGE is set.
> 
> Hmmm, so while I agree maintainer scripts for packages in Debian (or
> I guess Ubuntu) should not be using u-a --set (or --set-selections or
> --config for that matter), I don't think outright banning it from any
> maintainer script is the right answer, because that seems to be a
> packaging policy issue. I can see how setting a specific alternative
> could be desirable in a local configuration package or another kind of
> distribution.
> 
> So I think a lintian error would be more appropriate here. It could
> even be made so that DAK refuses such uploads, perhaps. I'm tagging
> this wontfix for now, and will be closing in the near future if no
> other convincing arguments are put forward.

I'm thus reassigning to lintian.

thanks,
guillem