Re: Bug#638060: debian-policy: §9.1.1: FHS should also be a "must" for generated files
* Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [120227 19:03]:
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
> > Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> >> + The location of all files and directories must comply with the
> >> + Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
>
> > Unfortunately, I don't think that matches the old intent. This sounds
> > like a restriction on the admin. I'm particularly worried that people
> > could use this as justification for packages assuming that all files and
> > directories comply with the FHS, instead of coping with the real world
>
> Could you be more specific about exactly what behavior you're worried
> about? I thought about this for a while before making this change and
> can't think of any place where this would realistically affect packages.
>
> Note also that Policy is specifically Policy *for Debian packages*, so we
> don't need to worry that Policy imposes restrictions on what admins do.
> It can't; that's out of scope.
I guess it could be misunderstood about what kind of files and
directories a package may expect: If a package deletes all top-level
directories not allowed by FHS or mentioned by Debian policy, is that
a violation? If a package fails to work with home directories in /user
or a package fails to work with TMPDIR=/tempshares/username, is that
a bug in the package?
The answers to all those questions should be obvious, but as people like
to make policy more explicit and less interpreted with common sense, it
might be good to be more explicit about that.
Bernhard R. Link
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