Bug#640263: debian-policy: Clarify policy section 9.9 - Environment variables

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Russ Allbery wrote:

> I propose the attached patch to address all of those issues.  Seconds or
> further discussion?
[...]
>  policy.sgml |   24 ++++++++++--------------
>  1 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

What happened to this proposal?  Does it need attention from any
particular affected audience (maybe the base-files maintainer or
people familiar with the system initialization process)?

Patch left unsnipped for reference.

> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -7450,11 +7450,14 @@ Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
>  	<heading>Environment variables</heading>
>  
>  	<p>
> -	  A program must not depend on environment variables to get
> -	  reasonable defaults.  (That's because these environment
> -	  variables would have to be set in a system-wide
> -	  configuration file like <file>/etc/profile</file>, which is not
> -	  supported by all shells.)
> +	  Programs installed on the system PATH
> +	  (<file>/bin</file>, <file>/usr/bin</file>, <file>/sbin</file>,
> +	  <file>/usr/sbin</file>, or similar directories) must not depend
> +	  on custom environment variable settings to get reasonable
> +	  defaults.  This is because such environment variables would have
> +	  to be set in a system-wide configuration file such as a file
> +	  in <file>/etc/profile.d</file>, which is not supported by all
> +	  shells.
>  	</p>
>  
>  	<p>
> @@ -7464,8 +7467,8 @@ Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
>  	  variables are not present. If this cannot be done easily
>  	  (e.g., if the source code of a non-free program is not
>  	  available), the program must be replaced by a small
> -	  "wrapper" shell script which sets the environment variables
> -	  if they are not already defined, and calls the original program.
> +	  "wrapper" shell script that sets the environment variables
> +	  if they are not already defined and calls the original program.
>  	</p>
>  
>  	<p>
> @@ -7478,13 +7481,6 @@ export BAR
>  exec /usr/lib/foo/foo "$@"
>  	  </example>
>  	</p>
> -
> -	<p>
> -	  Furthermore, as <file>/etc/profile</file> is a configuration
> -	  file of the <prgn>base-files</prgn> package, other packages must
> -	  not put any environment variables or other commands into that
> -	  file.
> -	</p>
>        </sect>
>  
>        <sect id="doc-base">
> -- 
> 1.7.7.3
>