Bug#541537: debian-policy: note about sensible-{editor,pager}
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 05:36:40PM +0000, Clint Adams wrote:
> Due to potential confusion about sensible-utils being only de facto
> Essential and whether or not packages should be declaring dependencies
> on it. Something like this footnote may be helpful.
With the current dependencies, sensible-utils isn't de facto Essential at
all. On upgrade from lenny, there's a significant possibility that the new
debianutils will be unpacked before the new sensible-utils, at which point
anything expecting sensible-(browser|editor|pager) to be on the system will
be broken, regardless of whether that package is in an 'installed' state at
the time. Likewise, at any future point dpkg/apt is allowed to remove
sensible-utils entirely from the system (perhaps temporarily as part of a
pessimal upgrade), or remove its own dependencies (if any in the future)
rendering it inoperable, with no indication that this will break other
packages relying on sensible-foo.
Only packages which are Pre-Depends of Essential packages are de facto
Essential in any meaningful sense, not those which are Depends.
> diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
> index bcbaacb..57c5386 100644
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -7953,11 +7953,13 @@ done
> EDITOR or PAGER variables, that program may be configured to
> use <file>/usr/bin/sensible-editor</file> and
> <file>/usr/bin/sensible-pager</file> as the editor or pager
> - program respectively. These are two scripts provided in the
> - Debian base system that check the EDITOR and PAGER variables
> - and launch the appropriate program, and fall back to
> - <file>/usr/bin/editor</file> and <file>/usr/bin/pager</file> if the
> - variable is not set.
> + program respectively.<footnote>A package making unconditional
> + use of one of these programs must declare a dependency on
> + the package containing them.</footnote> These are two scripts
> + provided in the Debian base system that check the EDITOR and
> + PAGER variables and launch the appropriate program, and fall
> + back to <file>/usr/bin/editor</file> and
> + <file>/usr/bin/pager</file> if the variable is not set.
> </p>
>
> <p>
Rather than a footnote, I would suggest simply replacing "These are two
scripts provided in the Debian base system" with "These are two scripts
provided in the <package>sensible-utils</package> package".
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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