[Pkg-kbd-devel] Bug#810711: Bug#810711: kbd: examples/vcstime.service: move to /lib/systemd

[Andreas Henriksson]

Hello Paul Wise.

Thanks for your bug report.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 08:43:41PM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> Package: kbd
> Version: 2.0.3-2
> Severity: wishlist
> File: /usr/share/doc/kbd/examples/vcstime.service
> 
> It would be nice to move vcstime.service to the standard systemd
> directory (and enable all the hardening) but disabled by default so
> that it is just a systemctl enable/start away from working on boot.
> There isn't any downside to this as far as I can tell.

I was debating with myself over shipping it disabled or as an example.
Here are the reasons I decided for example:

 * shipping only a service is not policy compliant and does not work
   (cf. #747851), so I'd have to write and maintain an init script as well.
   (Contributions welcome, preferably via getting both init script/service
   merged upstream.)
 * From my quick look at vcstime.c it doesn't give me the impression to
   be a very efficient program or otherwise of quality I would recommend
   people to use/enable.
 * The vcstime is shipped by upstream under "contrib" which I'm not sure
   what it means but doesn't give me the feeling it's not fully supported
   by upstream. The contrib tools are not even built by a regular upstream
   build.
 * The vcstime utility really has nothing to do with the main functionality
   of the kbd package (which I think is quite core os stuff), maybe we should
   consider splitting core kbd parts from contrib stuff.... which means
   we would have to move conffiles between packages which AFAIK is still
   an unsolved problem.
 * ...

In short, I'm too lazy and don't want to commit to support vcstime.

For now I'm of the opinion that anyone who really wants to enable vcstime
should atleast get to ask themselves "maybe there was a reason for shipping
this as an example so I have to copy it myself to /etc/systemd/system before
enabling it?". I think this is easy enough that enabling it isn't annoyingly
hard if you really want it. The distinction between shipped-disabled and
example units is the best way to signal "supported" vs.
"you're-welcome-but-do-expect-you-have-to-maintain-it-yourself".

Regards,
Andreas Henriksson