Bug#765803: Status of prompting / notification on upgrade for init system switch?

[Ian Jackson]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: Bug#765803: Status of prompting / notification on upgrade for init system switch?"):
> This implies that we had decided not to change init systems on upgrade.  I
> don't believe that's correct.  I didn't express an opinion on it one way
> or another and intended to leave that for further discussion within the
> project.

We have been asked to decide on this question in #746578 even if you
don't think my own referral in #762194 is good enough.  It comes up in
#765803 too, although the question there is phrased differently.

>   it's not clear to me yet whether the TC even has actionable
> jurisdiction (in that there may not even be a conflict).

Svante Signell and I have clearly said that we think users should not
be switched automatically.

Tollef Fog Heen claimed in
 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=746578#134
that there is consensus on debian-devel in favour of the switch.


In earlier messages you have framed some of these bugs as requests to
overrule particular maintainers, whose packages had dependencies which
were causing this switch.

I think the principle, of whether this switch should be made
automatic, ought to be addressed separately, and should be regarded as
a question of overlapping jurisdictions.  We can't have different
maintainers fighting over init on users' systems by publishing
packages with dependencies which result in their preferred setup.

I think we should therefore issue a set of general guidance along the
lines of the draft I just posted.

If that guidance has technical consequences for the dependencies in
particular packages, and the maintainers do not agree, then that might
involve the TC overruling a particular maintainer to ensure that the
general principle is implemented.


Your objection that you feel we hadn't decided at the time could be
addressed by altering para 3 of my draft to read:

  3. The TC does not feel that our decision should extend to switching
     existing Debian GNU/Linux installations from sysvinit to systemd.
     Nor do we think that those users should be prompted to switch init
     system.


Ian.