Bug#533287: debian-policy: please clarify 10.7.4
severity 533287 wishlist
thanks
Sune Vuorela <reportbug@pusling.com> writes:
> There has recently on #debian-devel been a few discussions about
> wether it was allowed to edit other packages configuration files (not
> 'conffiles') in maintainer scripts.
>
> My interpretation of policy is that you are only allowed to edit other
> packages configure files thru a specific provided interface
> (e.g. update-inetd), and if a package don't offer such a interface,
> you aren't allowed.
>
> Some people seems to claim that you are allowed to do
> sed/cat/echo/perl magic on other packages configuration files in
> maintainerscripts if you really need it and there is no provided
> interface.
>
> I would like to get the wording clarified so that it is either fully
> permitted or, in my preference, clearly not allowed.
What isn't clear about Policy right now?
If it is desirable for two or more related packages to share a
configuration file and for all of the related packages to be able to
modify that configuration file, then the following should be done:
* One of the related packages (the "owning" package) will manage the
configuration file with maintainer scripts as described in the
previous section.
* The owning package should also provide a program that the other
packages may use to modify the configuration file.
* The related packages must use the provided program to make any
desired modifications to the configuration file. They should
either depend on the core package to guarantee that the
configuration modifier program is available or accept gracefully
that they cannot modify the configuration file if it is not. (This
is in addition to the fact that the configuration file may not
even be present in the latter scenario.)
I'm not seeing how that could be made less ambiguous. It seems to me
that your position is clearly correct and Policy spells that out rather
explicitly.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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