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Re: does /var/games have to be deleted on purge? (if it's empty..)



Hi,

On Montag, 4. Januar 2010, Russ Allbery wrote:
> >> and what the requirements of a package are around preserving or
> >> removing its data other than log files and configuration files on
> >> purge?  If so, that would be the relevant place to talk about whether
> >> or not directories like /var/games should be removed when empty (and
> >> similarly /var/games/package, /var/lib/package, etc.).
> >
> >         I think policy is currently vague about this since perhaps such
> >  a decision ought to be made on a case by case basis? I can certainly
> >  see the difference in preservation of data and state information for a
> >  RDBMS package as being different from that of a game which is different
> >  still from a clock program.  Can we be certain that the distribution is
> >  best served by a one size fits all policy here?
> That's a good point.  Maybe we should defer this to devref.  The Kerberos
> KDC prompts, for instance, and I think the LDAP server does as well, since
> losing that data can be a significant problem. 

Well, I think about changing my mind here. In the past, piuparts has indeed 
ignored eg the non-removal of the ldap database on purge. But now I wonder, 
why should this be done. Unix has a tradition to allow you to shot into your 
foot and if you do a purge of a package, then IMHO a purge should do what a 
purge should do. If you dont have backups and do purge, you might loose some 
important data. But thats the same with "rm -rf /" or such. 

So what should be the criteria for a package to behave differently on purge? 

> But I would expect most 
> games to delete their high score files and whatnot on purge.

Actually I'd expect a purge to have the same results for any package.

> We do seem to be pseudo-enforcing some rules around this via bug filings
> based on puiparts and the puiparts results presented on the QA pages.
> Those rules should probably at least be documented in the devref.

Absolutly.


cheers,
	Holger

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