Hi,
At the last TC meeting we concluded that we'd heard sufficient argument
on this issue to clarify the issues, and that we should therefore
proceed to a vote.
Here's a draft ballot; please suggest changes and/or say you're happy
with it in the next couple of days, I (or someone else!) can call for
votes on it.
===8<===
In Bug #1084924, the Technical Committee was asked about a mass bug
filing that aimed to remove all dependencies (except Provides: and
Conflicts:) upon the system-log-daemon virtual package. Whilst the
wording of policy in this area is unclear, the Technical Committee notes
that long-standing practice in this area as reflected by policy was that
packages could declare appropriate dependencies upon the
system-log-daemon virtual package. The Technical Committee also
acknowledges that on systemd systems, journald can serve the purpose of
system-log-daemon, but that systemd also supports installing a separate
system-log-daemon.
A) The Technical Committee affirms that it is reasonable for a package
to declare any suitable dependency upon the system-log-daemon virtual
package. The Technical Committee suggests that Policy be updated to
clarify this, and that maintainers who removed such dependencies as a
result of the mass bug filing consider restoring them.
B) The Technical Committee agrees that packages should now only declare
Provides: and Conflicts: relationships with the system-log-daemon
virtual package, and that Debian systems may be assumed to run a syslog
logger. The Technical Committee suggests that Policy be update to
reflect this change.
C) The Technical Committee resolves that this is a de facto attempt to
change Policy, and that the Policy process should be used to consider
whether to change Policy relating to system-log-daemon from the status
quo of packages being able to declare any reasonable dependency upon
system-log-daemon to the state where only Provides: and Conflicts: may
be used. Until that process is concluded, dependencies upon the
system-log-daemon should not be removed (unless they are incorrect on
the merits of an individual case).
N) None of the above / Further Discussion.
===8<===
Regards,
Matthew
