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[lintian] app-defaults mode 444



I just started to look at all the things that lintian reported about my
packages (thanx!) and I noticed:

W: groff: non-standard-file-perm usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/GXditview 0444

I noticed than that quite _all_ the files in that dir (on my hamm
system) are mode 444 (instead of 644) with few exceptions.

Policy says (4.6):

	*Application defaults* files have to be installed in the
	directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/'. They are
	considered as part of the program code. Thus, they should not be
	modified and should not be tagged as *conffile*. If the local
	system administrator wants to customise X applications globally,
	the file `/etc/X11/Xresources' should be used.

Therefore I think that it is better to leave them mode 444 so a user
(educated by Slackware) will find little more difficult to modify them
(mode 444 should make him think that that file shouldn't be modifyed)

But this should be carved in policy (before being implemented in
lintian):

	*Application defaults* files have to be installed in the
	directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/'. They are
	considered as part of the program code. Thus, they should not be
	modified (they are installed not-writable) and should not be
	tagged as *conffile*.   If the local system administrator wants
	to customise X applications globally, the file
	`/etc/X11/Xresources' should be used.

I also suggest that some relevant package (base-files?) installs a
README in that directory quoting this part of the policy, just as a
quick reference to all those users that "thinks" app-defaults files
are the right place for site-changes.


fab
-- 
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> more than 34 months are needed to get rid of the millennium. [me]


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