Dear Mark:
I reached out to jcristau to talk about his block hint.
Based on our IRC discussion, it sounds like he was having trouble
bringing himself to remove the hint presumably because he doesn't think
the broader issue was being dealt with.
I suggested that he might open his concerns as an RC bug on the package,
because that would regularize the situation.
Please do not just downgrade an RC bug opened by a member of the release
team. I think the release team would be entirely justified in blocking
your package or removing it at that point.
Unfortunately, it sounds like you are in a bad situation.
The systemd maintainers are telling you that you need to provide
libpam-systemd.
Actually, they would prefer that you create an elogind that mirrors
enough of the interfaces that you can just use libpam-systemd. You said
that would not work, explaining that elogind for example doesn't have a
concept of slices. You never clearly articulated why it couldn't
emulate slices enough to pacify libpam-systemd. I don't know if it is
just that work hasn't been done or if it would be a bad idea for some
reason.
Now you've got someone arguing that the providing libpam-systemd and
conflicting with libpam-systemd is problematic.
And I'll admit that it is definitely a problematic approach.
I realize that you talked it over with the systemd maintainers and while
they didn't quite agree, my reading of their message was fairly
sympathetic.
So now you've got conflicting requirements coming from multiple
directions.
I really don't see a way forward besides getting enough of the right
parties involved to understand the issues and come up with a solution
that balances the trade offs across multiple packages.
I'm sorry that you've been placed in this position.
--Sam
