Bug#403391: debian-policy: scripts as configuration files: should vs. must
On Mon, 17 Mar 2008, Jörg Sommer wrote:
> Russ Allbery schrieb am Sun 16. Mar, 15:01 (-0700):
> > Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
> >
> > > Here is the patch that I'm applying. If anyone objects, yell now.
> >
> > Actually, looking at this further, I see the Policy was never updated to
> > mention the /etc/cron.hourly directory. I'm fixing that as well. Here's
> > the new combined patch.
> >
> > --- orig/policy.sgml
> > +++ mod/policy.sgml
> > @@ -6388,12 +6388,13 @@
> > + treated as configuration files. In general, any script that
> > + embeds configuration information is de-facto a configuration
> > + file and should be treated as such.
> ^^^^^^
>
> Wasn't the initial request that these files /must/ be configuration
> files?
It really can't be, because there are loads of scripts that have
configuration information embedded but either need not be
configuration files because configuring them is done in some other
manner, or have very sensible defaults that only a few eccentrics
would ever want to change (and they can do so using a diversion.)[1]
Don Armstrong
1: Though I agree that scripts such as this should not live in /etc.
--
Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but
that's not why we do it.
-- Richard Feynman
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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