Bug#44922: [PROPOSAL] handling missing stuff in /var/local

["Juergen A. Erhard" <jae@ilk.de>]

Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.0.1.1
Severity: normal

Add to section 3.1.2:

  /usr/local is local admin territory.  Whatever the local admin
  does in or below /usr/local, must not affect the operation of even
  parts of a package.

  Thus, no package may depend on the existence of anything
  below /usr/local, even if it created the directory itself.  It
  may not even depend on the existence of /usr/local.

The motivation for this proposal is found in bug #44682.  I then
realized (poked by Edward Betts ;-) that policy is unclear on this...
it is allowed for a package to create dirs below /usr/local, but
policy is mum about what should happen when such dirs are removed
by the admin.

Comments welcome.

Of course, rephrasings are welcome to... ;-)

Bye, J

PS: I am not (yet) a maintainer... but I gathered from past
discussions on this that anyone can make a proposal, but only
maintainers can second.  (I just now read proposal.text ... but
I propose this anyway... it's necessary, so sue me >;-)

-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux sanctum 2.2.12 #1 Mon Sep 6 05:43:29 CEST 1999 i686