Re: [rfc] New package idea with policy problems

[brian@debian.org (Brian Mays)]

> On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 03:19:49PM -0400, Brian Mays wrote:

> > A *program* that modifies other packages' conffiles does not violate
> > policy.  Policy requires only that the *package*, through its package
> > scripts (preinst, postinst, etc.), not modify the conffiles of other
> > packages.

Roger Gammans <roger@computer-surgery.co.uk> wrote:

> Um, I'll take your word for it, all I could find in the policy-manual
> was the sentence.
> "A package may not modify a configuration file of another package."

This is a bit confusing.  The policy manual actually says the following:

     The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the configuration
     file a `conffile'.  This is appropriate if it is possible to
     distribute a default version that will work for most installations,
     although some system administrators may choose to modify it.  This
     implies that the default version will be part of the package
     distribution, and must not be modified by the maintainer scripts
     during installation (or at any other time).

Think of it this way.  If you use nvi to edit the /etc/profile file,
then the nvi package is modifying a conffile from the base-files
package.  Clearly this is allowed.  A "configuration tool" could be
thought of as a highly specialized editing program.

- Brian