[Pkg-samba-maint] new conf file refused interactively still installed with new date

[Steve Langasek]

On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 01:50:49AM +0200, Michel BRIAND wrote:

> Steve Langasek <vorlon at debian.org> - Mon, 7 Apr 2008 10:59:49 -0700

> >On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 07:33:04PM +0200, sean finney wrote:
> >> On Monday 07 April 2008 07:00:50 pm Steve Langasek wrote:
> >> > On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 11:41:21AM +0200, Michel BRIAND wrote:

> >> > > Do you think that "user changes" includes timestamp as well ?

> >> > No, that has never been a requirement.  The requirement is that it
> >> > must preserve user changes, not that it preserve config files
> >> > completely unmodified.

> >> though really, i don't think it's unreasonable to file a bug against
> >> ucf that it should preserve timestamps on the files. 

> >Considering ucf isn't what's changing the file?

> >Samba has *always* touched smb.conf on upgrades, this is a normal
> >debconf-managed config file!  ucf is a red herring and has nothing to
> >do with why the timestamp changes.

> Yes, but suppose that smb.conf has not been changed. The semantic of
> "not changed" is often verified by us looking at the date of the file,
> mind you ?

> It seems to me that, if postinst of your package is to update smb.conf,
> or whatever conffile, it should preserve the original one before hand,
> with cp -p for example, and then, after having confirmation of what the
> user want to do, proceed with a modification.

> It's not very complicated, I think. And would deserve/serve both our
> mind view's, isn't it ?

No, I'm not going to modify the samba package to create extra backup files
when the current code is already verified to correctly preserve user
settings.

If you think this is something that should happen, establish a consensus on
debian-devel or get it added to debian-policy.  I think the change you're
requesting is wrong, and would set a bad precedent.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org