Bug#533287: debian-policy: please clarify 10.7.4
>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.
For example by me.
For me it isn't clear.
For example we grub/grub2 maintainers have the problem that some people
still have /sbin/update-grub in their /etc/kernel-img.conf.
grub-legacy has a wrapper to warn about this since etch, but we recently
got a bug report in grub2 who had it still in place (#500631).
After I asked in #debian-devel my solution to this problem was to just
abort in the preinst with an error message.
Then I noticed #470894 where Colin Watson wanted to
edit /etc/default/grub inside of grub-installer.
And there I told him that I'm unsure if policy allows this and told him
my solution to our problem.
In message #36 [0] and #46 [1], he told me that we should either keep it
as an symlink or just edit automatically /etc/kernel-img.conf
/etc/kernel-img.conf is edited by grub-installer automatically to add
update-grub to it.
For the /etc/default/grub one he suggested to switch to ucf for it so
that it isn't anymore a problem with policy.
So I trusted him and implemented both changes (running sed over
kernel-img.conf and ucf for /etc/default/grub).
After I did it I saw that he added himself as an Uploader to
debian-policy, so I even more trusted him that he knows if policy allows
this or not.
But it seems I was wrong and policy seems to forbid this. So I'd need to
fallback to the fail in preinst method.
But then I don't know what grub-installer should do for #470894, except
we provide a update-etc-default-grub script which just runs sed over it,
just to compl with policy.
10.7.4 says:
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.
These 2 sentences together don't make sense for me.
They should provide a program that other packages -may_ use and then the
next sentence it's a _must_.
Oh and yes I even looked up the meaning of may in a dictionary because
english isn't my first language.
[0] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=470894#36
[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=470894#46
--
Felix Zielcke
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