Bug#29770: Policy contradicts itself about /etc/aliases

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Ian Jackson wrote:

> Santiago Vila writes ("Bug#29770: Policy contradicts itself about /etc/aliases"):
> ...
> > Policy says:
> > 
> > "A package may not modify a configuration file of another package."
> 
> Why don't we change this to:
> 
>   A package may not modify a configuration file of another package,
>   except by arrangement (with that package or by policy).
> 
> Anything else would clearly be silly.

Well, some people (Manoj?) told me that the real meaning of the above
paragraph was "a package may not modify a *conffile* of another package",
i.e. that this does only apply to conffiles in the dpkg sense.

Since a conffile and a configuration file is not always the same thing,
I think we should first agree on what the policy should be, before we
discuss about how to word it :-)

Personally, I think that modifying configuration files in other packages
is in general a bad thing, being it a conffile or not.

I would agree with your proposal, then.

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