Re: policy violation and bug reports.

[Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>]

Adam P. Harris wrote:
> No, I think Manoj's original suggestion was better.  Handle high score 
> files from {post,pre}{inst,rm}.  Do not tag as a conf file.  Leave in /
> var/games.

Just to reiterate my objections:

1. Have to handle score files which change format.
2. Have to handle score files that come with some scores already in them,
   for you to try to beat. (Ie, Maelstrom's score file)
3. We already have a mechanism for doing this (conffiles). Why re-implement
   it on a package by package basis?
4. Thse are variable data files, and the fsstnd says the place for them is
   /var, not /etc.

I really haven't seen any of these issues addressed yet, though I respect
your feelings on this and it's good to have someone else's input!

> The dosemu hdimage is a really good case for testing policy.  I think 
> it's a fringe case.

Yes, I agree. Another one that comes to mind is lambdamoo's database. This
starts out at about 2 mb, and can grow to any size (I think large moo's like
lambdamoo have lambdacore files in the hundreds of megabytes). It's
currently a conffiles, in /var. Not ideal, as like the dosemu hdimage file,
you rarely want to overwrite it with a new upstream version.

> Personally what I would do is leave
> /var/lib/dosemu/hdimage.first, and instruct users to not modify that, and
> instead make something under, say, /usr/local/lib/dosemu.
> /etc/dosemu.conf could point at that.

Fsstnd:

  Any program or package which contains or requires data that doesn't need
  to be modified should store that data in /usr/lib (or /usr/local/lib, if
  installed locally).

Since the dosemu hdimage (and lambdamoo databases) are modified, no place
under /usr is the right place for them. It's clear that the correct
location, according to the fsstnd, is /var.

> I don't think we should worry *too* much about increasing /etc, so long 
> as we don't do anything too nutty.  And putting big hdimage files under 
> /etc qualifies as "nutty" in my book, though I doubt the Policy can 
> define "nutty" with any high degree of accuracy ;)

I agree, and I think putting the lambdacore files under /etc is even more
nutty. So, what to do?

-- 
see shy jo