Bug#299007: Group staff in /usr/local: Moving forward

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

Hi.

If the only thing we need here is a transition plan, here we go:

I propose the following plan to change the *default* behaviour of
group staff and /usr/local at the same time we completely keep
backwards compatibility with already installed systems.

First we modify base-files to do this:

* On upgrades:
   from version < SOMEVERSION, create /etc/SOMEFILE.
   from version >= SOMEVERSION, do nothing.
* On new installs, create /etc/SOMEFILE-

Then we amend policy so that it reads like this:

* Packages creating directories or putting files in /usr/local should:
- Depend on base-files >= SOMEVERSION
- Check if /etc/SOMEFILE exists.
- If it exists, do things as current policy says.
- If it does not exist, create directories 755 and root:root.

After we change policy, we could start filing bugs, but they do not
need to be RC yet.

Instead, we wait for wheezy to be released.

After the release of wheezy, we modify base-files in this way:

* On upgrades, same as before:
   from version < SOMEVERSION, create /etc/SOMEFILE.
   from version >= SOMEVERSION, do nothing.
* On new installs, do nothing (i.e. stop creating the file).

And this is when we consider the bugs to be RC for wheezy+1, but we
would have plenty of time to fix them (all the development stage for wheezy+1).

SOMEFILE would be something like /etc/staff-group-for-usr-local and it
could even be self-documenting ("This file exist so that bla bla. if you
remove this file after upgrading to wheezy+1, directories under /usr/local
will be created root:root and 755").

I believe this plan makes the transition as smooth as possible. Please
tell me if you see any flaw in it.

I'll be happy to prepare a patch against policy with the required wording
(and of course, do the required changes in base-files).

Thanks.