Re: Let's have a vote!
PaulNM <debian@paulscrap.com> writes:
> On 09/28/2014 05:25 PM, Joe wrote:
>> On Sun, 28 Sep 2014 11:01:24 -0500
>> John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> An upgraded system is not necessarily identical to a new installation,
>
> [...]
>
> It's more that Debian tries not to change things unless you ask it to.
> For example, if the default mail server were to change between releases.
> New installs would have the new default, while older ones would just
> upgrade the version of the mailserver you already have.
They didn't do that when replacing the default MTA, which was exim
(version 3), with exim (which was version 4 and still is, and is even
stilled called exim4). You got a choice to either stay with exim3 or to
upgrade to exim4. And that's the way things should be done, one of the
appreciable features of Debian.
> It's entirely possible to use virtual packages to move people from the
> old default to the new during upgrades, but that would be incredibly bad
> practice. Debian aims for stability, even during upgrades between stable
> releases.
Another appreciable feature is that configurations you modified are not
overwritten by the versions that come in packages without asking. What
you suggest would involve to abandon this good practise.
Cyrus is another example where what you suggest would have been bad
practise. Upgrading required to make changes to the mail storage. Do
that quietly in the process of a distribution upgrade and you may leave
users with quite a mess they then somehow need to fix, potentially
losing the whole mail storage.
Debian used to do these things right. Maybe they will continue to do
them right.
--
Hallowed are the Debians!
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