Bug#872587: Document the Protected field

[Martin-Éric Racine <martin-eric.racine@iki.fi>]

ke 27. maalisk. 2024 klo 14.00 Andrey Rakhmatullin (wrar@debian.org) kirjoitti:
>
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 01:29:50PM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> > > The documentation from deb-control(5) is:
> > >
> > > Protected: yes|no
> > >     This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It denotes
> > >     a package that is required mostly for proper booting of the system or
> > >     used for custom system-local meta-packages.  dpkg(1) or any other
> > >     installation tool will not allow a Protected package to be removed (at
> > >     least not without using one of the force options).
> > >
> > > It's probably also worth noting the parenthetical comment in the
> > > documentation of Essential:
> > >
> > > Essential: yes|no
> > >     This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It denotes
> > >     a package that is required for the packaging system, for proper
> > >     operation of the system in general or during boot (although the latter
> > >     should be converted to Protected field instead).  dpkg(1) or any other
> > >     installation tool will not allow an Essential package to be removed
> > >     (at least not without using one of the force options).
> >
> > I'm still not sure that I inderstand the difference between those two.
> > They seem to accomplish the same thing. Did I miss something?
> Per my understanding which may be flawed:
>
> "Essential: yes" are always installed. Tools and dependencies assume they
> are installed.  Bootstrapping tools install them implicitly. Package
> management tools refuse to remove them.
>
> "Protected: yes" are nothing like that. Package management tools refuse to
> remove them and that's all.

Thanks. This sounds much clearer already. In that case, the above
deb-control(5) needs a much better phrasing. Something like:

Protected: yes|no
This field prevents a package from getting auto-removed by dpkg
without using one of the force options. It is intended for custom
local packages not meant for upload to the Debian repository.

Essential: yes|no
This field prevents a package from getting auto-removed by dpkg
without using one of the force options. It also makes debootstrap and
other similar tools force-install them. Maintainers must request
approval from the debian-devel mailing list before uploading any
package with the Essential field set to the Debian repository. See
Essential packages (Section 3.8) in the Debian Policy Manual for
details.

Martin-Éric