Bug#638060: debian-policy: §9.1.1: FHS should also be a "must" for generated files
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.9.2.0
Severity: minor
Policy 9.1.1 states: "The location of all installed files and
directories must comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
[...]".
IMHO this should not only cover "installed files" (which I interpret
as "files being shipped in packages") but also files created by
programs or scripts (including maintainer scripts) shipped in Debian
packages, e.g. to cover cases where a program creates a cache file
under /usr/ like e.g. http://bugs.debian.org/638030
I therefore suggest to rephrase this sentence as follows:
"The location of all installed files and directories, and all files
and directories generated or created by installed programs or scripts
(including maintainer scripts) must comply with the Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard (FHS) [...]".
Besides the location of installed and generated files, their behaviour
should also comply to the FHS, i.e., programs like apt must not fail
if /var/cache/* is removed. On the other hand, local debian packages
for propritary software generated by scripts shipped in a Debian
package do not need to comply to the FHS. It is not clear where to
draw the line between these extremes, for example, would a script that
installs a software to a non-standard location (e.g., because upstream
has weird opinions about such things) after asking the user to confirm
this be allowed in Debian? Depending on a consensus to the former
question, the above sentence could be adapted or extended.
Feel free to clone this bug if you want to handle the latter issue
separately.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (600, 'testing'), (400, 'stable'), (110, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-xen-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.ISO-8859-15, LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO-8859-15 (charmap=ISO-8859-15)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
debian-policy depends on no packages.
debian-policy recommends no packages.
Versions of packages debian-policy suggests:
pn doc-base <none> (no description available)
-- no debconf information
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