Re: Question about debconf notes
Quoting Thomas Viehmann <tv@beamnet.de> (2003-03-02 06:55:29 GMT):
> Andrew Stribblehill wrote:
> > But yes, I think a debconf note is worth doing since without it, the
> > package will become useless for those who don't know to flush the
> > cache.
> No!
>
> Policy 2.3.9.1
>
> If a package has a vitally important piece of information to pass to the user
> (such as "don't run me as I am, you must edit the following configuration files
> first or you risk your system emitting badly-formatted messages"), it should
> display this in the config or postinst script and prompt the user to hit return
> to acknowledge the message. Copyright messages do not count as vitally
> important (they belong in /usr/share/doc/package/copyright); neither do
> instructions on how to use a program (these should be in on-line documentation,
> where all the users can see them).
>
> The intended piece of information is hardly *vitally* *important*.
> Remember: It's debconf not debpopup.
I think you draw a distinction betweeen "vitally important" from the
system's point of view and "vitally important" from that of the
package. In either case, I doubt blood is likely to be shed, so I
wouldn't take it too literally.
> > Shame the program can't test which version wrote the previous cache
> > and invalidate it automatically if the version bumps.
> It can transparently for the user. You can have a wrapper program do just that
> or notify the individual user that he needs to do something. (Just have the
> wreapper create a ${HOME}/.eli_version with the version and compare it next time
> it's run.)
Indeed, that's the Right Way in this case, unless you can persuade
Upstram to incorporate a .eli_version thing into their own code.
--
Andrew Stribblehill <ads@debian.org>
Systems programmer, IT Service, University of Durham, England
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