Bug#391841: #391841: debian-policy: Remove time-daemon
As ntp comaintainer, I have so far resisted adding the time-daemon provides
because I find that the interface and the purpose is underspecified.
For example, nothing specifies whether a "time-daemon" should set the true
time, or a synchronized time, or just a reasonable time. There is nothing
that a package depending on time-daemon could rely on. Of course, many
multi-host software systems like synchronized clocks, but a package
dependency can't express that anyway. (And a default ntp installation in
fact does not really provide synchronized clocks.)
The other use case is package conflicts. Offhand, it makes a great deal of
sense to have only one program messing with the system time. But that
doesn't mean that all these time-related packages need to conflict with each
other. For example, both ntp and ntpdate (or chrony and ntpdate) can be used
together. But they are both time-setting programs on their own right.
(Admittedly, ntpdate is not a "daemon".) It's also possible that people only
want to use the user-space tools of ntp but use a different daemon. The
access to the clock should be controlled in a different way. I consider this
to be a different situation than mail-transport-agent, which actually do
conflict because they all provide /usr/sbin/sendmail.
So while I don't have a strong opinion about the removal of time-daemon, I'd
need to see a clearer definition before I can put it into use. (The same
really applies to many other virtual packages.)
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