Bug#42052: PROPOSAL] /var/mail and /var/spool/mail

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Joseph Carter wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 18, 1999 at 12:56:23PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > [ Note that I'm not particularly disappointed that someone objects this
> > proposal, I think we could well wait for FHS 2.1 to be official before
> > going any further ].
> 
> FHS 2.1 includes /var/mail, but says it may be a symlink if need be.
> 
> So essentially Ian is trying to kill the proposal before FHS 2.1 has a
> chance to be published and recommend this sort of approach.  Wonderful.

I forgot to mention that I *am* a little bit disappointed by the reasoning
given by Ian to kill the proposal, specially, that "FHS is wrong".

Ian, why do you dislike /var/mail for new systems and /var/spool/mail
for old systems? Eventually, we will have to support both, since we
aim for FHS compliance.

Maybe you want a careful release-by-release plan, something like this?:

1. A new base-files which support /var/mail is uploaded to potato.
2. *After* potato is released, we make policy to follow FHS, which says
   that packages should reference /var/mail internally. Packages doing so
   should depend on the base-files in potato.

Why do you say this may not be done right?

Thanks.

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