On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 09:57:17AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Holger Levsen <hol...@layer-acht.org> writes: > > > please read #618885 which is about whether sasl2-bin can kept files on > > the system after purging it. > > > Policy 6.8 says that files must be removed on purge, Roberto says > > sasl2-bin is an exception. I disagree. > > I concur with Roberto in general. I don't think removing a user-generated > authentication database on purge without some sort of prompt is acceptable > given the risk of user data loss. To me, this is equivalent to removing > the OpenLDAP database or the Kerberos KDC database, which have similar > prompts and default to not removing the database on purge. > > However, in the specific case exercised by puiparts, this file would > contain only automatically generated data from the sasl2-bin postinst. > Could its postrm examine the file on purge and see whether it contains > only the automatically-generated content created by the postinst, and if > so, delete it without a prompt? This seems entirely safe to me provided > that the logic works, and would resolve the puiparts issue without > removing user data without prompting.
I would like to thank you for writing that. The distinction should be done between user-generated data and package-generated data, and how to deal with amiguous cases. This issue is similar with handling of config files changes. Packages should not bother the users when the users did no modify the files. In the same way, if the user did not actually generate any data, then the useless file should be cleaned up. Cheers, -- Bill. <ballo...@debian.org> Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110429191841.GC2835@yellowpig
