[Pkg-systemd-maintainers] Contributing to systemd in Debian (Re: Please fix your systemd bugreports)

[Michael Biebl]

Hi Shawn,

first of all, let me apologize for the harsh replies you got today. You
are clearly very enthusiastic about systemd in Debian and we very much
welcome that.
It's just, that if everyone who's enthusiastic about systemd, starts
filing bug reports in an uncoordinated way, we end up in a mess and with
unnecessary churn.
We especially want to avoid annoying the individual package maintainers.

Also, we are currently just in the process of finding best practices how
to add systemd support to individual packages and sometimes it's a bit
more involved then adding a very simple service file.

I haven't yet looked at all the bug reports you've filed, but as an
example, take spamassassin, that Michael S. already mentioned.

Instead of mimicking what the sysv init script does and subverting
.service files to read ENABLE flags from /etc/default/foo, we want to
kindly push maintainers, to instead get rid of those completely.
We do have a proper interface in sysv (via update-rc.d disable)
nowadays, and all we still need is support from dh_installinit, to
install services in a disabled state [1].
Doing it "the right" way takes longer, as all the necessary bits and
pieces need to be in place. The goal must be, to fix and prepare our
infrastructure to provide proper integration, and not have as many
service file as fast as possible.

Another bug report I quickly looked at, is memcached: It also has the
aforementioned enable flag issue, but more importantly, the sysv init
script supports some kind of "templating", i.e. if it finds config files
name /etc/memcached_*.conf, it starts up multiple instances.
Your service file drops that functionality completely.
The least that can be done is, to document that fact. You could also
provide a template service memcached at .service with documentation how to
use that.
My point is, that doing it right, often needs more effort and looking at
what the Debian sysv counterpart is doing.
It often helps to discuss those within the team to find proper ways to
address such issues.

May I invite you to join the pkg-systemd team, if you are interested?
We hang out on #debian-systemd (on oftc) and discuss stuff via
pkg-systemd-maintainers at l.a.d.o. We also try to coordinate before filing
bug reports and usually CC the mailing list, so others are kept in the loop.

Cheers,
Michael





[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=709384

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Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
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