Bug#727680: “Yes, do as I say!“ sounds odd
>> I'm sure you have, as an apt dev, a better understanding than me of
>> these problems so, now that I've reported my thoughts, I'll stop arguing
>> and trust your decision :)
>
> No no no no no. Put that idea back into the trash bin there it belongs.
> Use a baseball bat if you have to, to keep it from popping up again! ;)
Ok ok ok ok ok, will do :)
>> Then using the "I'll do everything I can without checking anything"
>> --force-yes option looks to me like "we don't support removing essential
>> packages anymore".
>
> Ah, now I see where are you coming from.
>
> My take is: Removing an essential package is in the same category as
> 'rm -rf /'. Very few people will ever need it for what it does, but
> many people (in comparison) will execute it by accident. rm invented
> the --preserve-root flag, APT has this silly question (and a flag) and
> starts to bug you to install this package again e.g. on dist-upgrade.
> I feel like this is in line with what the debian policy says:
> http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html#s3.8
Thank you for recalling the Policy and explaining how the unfortunate
"essential" flag on sysvinit led me to this situation. Now I understand
your position better. Indeed "Essential" is more critical than I
thought, and the --force-yes option makes more sense in this context,
the operation being crossing the border.
Thanks for taking your time to explain that, much appreciated.
Best regards,
--
captnfab
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