Bug#533287: debian-policy: please clarify 10.7.4
Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
> That last "if" seems like an odd and not too useful loophole. It would
> be nicer for policy to clearly state that packages *should not* modify
> configuration files owned by other packages directly, whether a tool for
> indirectly modifying is provided or not. If such a tool doesn't exist,
> that's a hint that it's time to help the package maintainer to write
> one.
Yeah, that's generally how we've interpreted it in the past.
> How about something like this patch?
This generally looks good, but here you remove the definition of "owning
package":
> <item>
> - One of the related packages (the "owning" package)
> - will manage the configuration file with maintainer
> + One of the related packages (the <em>owner</em>)
> + manages the configuration file with maintainer
> scripts as described in the previous section.
> </item>
but here it's still used:
> configuration file. They should either depend on
> - the core package to guarantee that the configuration
> + the owning package to guarantee that the configuration
> modifier program is available or accept gracefully
> that they cannot modify the configuration file if it
> is not. (This is in addition to the fact that the
We should be consistent about terminology. Other than that nit, seconded.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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