Bug#945269: debian-policy: packages should use tmpfiles.d(5) to create directories below /var

[Sean Whitton]

Hello,

On Tue 09 May 2023 at 01:44AM +01, Luca Boccassi wrote:

> I've done an initial attempt to define the wording, although I'm sure
> it will need quite a few changes. Attached as a patch, and also
> available on Salsa:
>
> https://salsa.debian.org/bluca/policy/-/commits/tmpfiles
>
> Happy to move/reword/change/enhance as required.

Thanks.

> For now I've kept only a mention of the 'systemd-tmpfiles' virtual
> package. As maintainers we would really prefer if the 'main'
> implementation is pulled in whenever possible. When a minimal
> installation is desired (ie, a minbase), it is possible to manually
> specify the -standalone variant.
>
> This was a controversial point last year, see:
>
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1017441

Hmm.  I don't have personal experience with this sort of thing, but
based on some of the examples in that bug, it seems like doing this
could cause apt to change people's systems around in ways they strongly
disprefer.  What you propose seems like it could cause unpleasant
surprises.

> We could even decide that no dependency is added at all by dh, and
> instead the build tool needs to decide if it's building an image where
> tmpfiles snippets need to be ran, and if so pull in the preferred
> alternative.

This is a highly inspecific response, but: aren't things expressed by
dependencies generally less work for everyone than more special cases to
be handled by each build tool?

-- 
Sean Whitton
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 869 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-systemd-maintainers/attachments/20230604/a6aad2bf/attachment.sig>