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Re: rc & runsystem


From: Neal H. Walfield
Subject: Re: rc & runsystem
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 00:23:47 +0000
User-agent: Wanderlust/2.10.1 (Watching The Wheels) SEMI/1.14.6 (Maruoka) FLIM/1.14.6 (Marutamachi) APEL/10.6 Emacs/21.2 (i386-debian-linux-gnu) MULE/5.0 (SAKAKI)

>  It is about what _users_ expect, and this is what users
> expect, you have Neal, Harley and Marco back over there who think this
> is a good.

My position is the following: it is annoying to have which I have
modified overwritten.

As I understood the original patch, it elided this annoying behavior
by disabling the installation of files that would likely replace files
which were modified by the user.  This is a behavior which I have
encountered and found annoying.

I agree with Roland that `make install' is not a package manager nor
should we pretend that it is.  On the other hand, the files we are
talking about are basically templates that a package manager would
modify and if we consider them as templates then I think not
installing them is fine.  (Hence, we just provide them as samples for
package maintainers.)

Roland's statement also begs the question: what is the purpose of
`make install'?  If it is not a package manager (and hence not for
users) then it is either for package maintainers or for developers.
In the former case, they are likely to customize these files.
Alternatively, if we change the system, they can install it themselves
in their package.  The latter will likely find it annoying.  In fact,
several people who build the Hurd and install it have said so.

Further, since we already have a policy, as Alfred pointed out, to not
overwrite certain system configuration files, I think this supports
the argument that rc and runsystem are eligible for special treatment.

If Roland maintains, however, that rc and runsystem are not templates
but an integral part of the system then I think we should stay with
the status quo.  If he agrees that these are templates for package
managers, then I think we should only install them if they do not
already exist.

Thanks,
Neal







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