Bug#61308: Status change.

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

close 61308
reopen 61308
severity 61308 normal
retitle [AMMENDMENT 22/04/2000] About the use of conffiles

Summary:

Current policy 4.7.3 says:

   Configuration file handling must conform to the following behavior:
     * local changes must be preserved during a package upgrade
     * configuration files should be preserved when the package is
       removed, and only deleted when the package is purged.

   The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the configuration
   file a conffile. This is appropriate if it is possible to distribute a
   default version that will work for most installations, although some
   system administrators may choose to modify it. This implies that the
   default version will be part of the package distribution, and must not
   be modified by the maintainer scripts during installation (or at any
   other time).

   The other way to do it is to via the maintainer scripts. [...]

The paragraph "The easy way..." says conffiles are appropriate "whenever
it is possible to distribute a default version..." but the other way
is also true: Whenever it is not possible to distribute a default 
version that will work for most installations, the use of conffiles
is not appropriate.

To discourage the use of conffiles whenever it is not appropriate
a proposal is made to add the "only" word between "appropriate" and 
"if", so that the paragraph reads as follows:

   The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the configuration
   file a conffile. This is appropriate only if it is possible to distribute a
   default version that will work for most installations, although some
   system administrators may choose to modify it. This implies that the
   default version will be part of the package distribution, and must not
   be modified by the maintainer scripts during installation (or at any
   other time).

This proposal has been seconded by:

Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>
Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>
Nicolás Lichtmaier <nick@debian.org>

So far, there have been no objections to the proposal in its final 
form (i.e. just adding the "only" word).

Since there has been already a discussion about this, in which the 
initial proposal was refined until it was reduced to the mere
addition of a word, I hereby set the formal discussion period to 
one week.

Thanks.