Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 14:42 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> I'm not sure how many of these were false positives, but I'm fairly sure
> that at least some of them are real:
>
> http://lintian.debian.org/tags/read-in-maintainer-script.html
Not all that many, and some will be false positives. I think we should
go for it...
> Yes. I think there was some sort of essential package exception discussed
> earlier in the bug (although even essential packages should try debconf
> first and fall back if it's not available, I think).
I'd be very happy to see a policy change for this, so long as it allowed
that packages may fall back if debconf (or other alternative) is not
available.
The current relevant text is:
Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary.
Prompting should be done by communicating through a program,
such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration
Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Prompting the
user by other means, such as by hand[9], is now deprecated.
I think we should change that fairly simply to something like:
Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary.
Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such
as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration
Management Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such
interface is available when they are executed.
This:
(a) changes the 'should' to a 'must';
(b) gives an out for those situations where debconf is not installed;
(c) narrowly focuses that 'out' only to apply during execution
(d) seems to me to be a simpler and more elegant approach than other
wording proposals against this bug.
I've attached a patch to that effect.
Cheers,
Andrew.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com +64(272)DEBIAN
Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index df586d1..342b6c4 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -1218,17 +1218,11 @@
<heading>Prompting in maintainer scripts</heading>
<p>
Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if
- necessary. Prompting should be done by communicating
+ necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating
through a program, such as <prgn>debconf</prgn>, which
conforms to the Debian Configuration Management
- Specification, version 2 or higher. Prompting the user by
- other means, such as by hand<footnote>
- From the Jargon file: by hand 2. By extension,
- writing code which does something in an explicit or
- low-level way for which a presupplied library
- (<em>debconf, in this instance</em>) routine ought
- to have been available.
- </footnote>, is now deprecated.
+ Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such
+ interface is available when they are executed.
</p>
<p>
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