Re: Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile
reassign 122817 debian-policy
severity 122817 wishlist
thanks
On 7 Dec 2001, Javier Fernandez-Sanguino Pena wrote:
> Package: base-files
> Version: 3.0
> Severity: important
> Tag: patch
>
> First of all, I'm setting this bug as important due to the fact that, even
> if it works as is some packages (bastille and user-es for example) have to do
> some very nasty stuff to work properly.
>
> The issue here is: how do packages include/change information in the user's
> environment without changing /etc/profile? Currently there is no way.
The profile.d thing has been suggested several times (see the archived
bugs for the base-files package) and I have always rejected it because
it is against the spirit of policy when it says:
10.9 Environment variables
A program must not depend on environment variables to get reasonable
defaults. (That's because these environment variables would have to be
set in a system-wide configuration file like /etc/profile, which is
not supported by all shells.)
If a program usually depends on environment variables for its
configuration, the program should be changed to fall back to a
reasonable default configuration if these environment variables are
not present.
If we followed this, no program in Debian should ever need a profile.d
mechanism.
My opinion is that this policy (i.e. that packages should fall back to
reasonable defaults) is *good* and should not be changed.
Packages "needing" a profile.d are buggy and should be changed.
I'm reassigning this bug to the debian-policy package, where it really
belongs.
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