Hi, On Montag, 4. Januar 2010, Russ Allbery wrote: > >> and what the requirements of a package are around preserving or > >> removing its data other than log files and configuration files on > >> purge? If so, that would be the relevant place to talk about whether > >> or not directories like /var/games should be removed when empty (and > >> similarly /var/games/package, /var/lib/package, etc.). > > > > I think policy is currently vague about this since perhaps such > > a decision ought to be made on a case by case basis? I can certainly > > see the difference in preservation of data and state information for a > > RDBMS package as being different from that of a game which is different > > still from a clock program. Can we be certain that the distribution is > > best served by a one size fits all policy here? > That's a good point. Maybe we should defer this to devref. The Kerberos > KDC prompts, for instance, and I think the LDAP server does as well, since > losing that data can be a significant problem.
Well, I think about changing my mind here. In the past, piuparts has indeed
ignored eg the non-removal of the ldap database on purge. But now I wonder,
why should this be done. Unix has a tradition to allow you to shot into your
foot and if you do a purge of a package, then IMHO a purge should do what a
purge should do. If you dont have backups and do purge, you might loose some
important data. But thats the same with "rm -rf /" or such.
So what should be the criteria for a package to behave differently on purge?
> But I would expect most
> games to delete their high score files and whatnot on purge.
Actually I'd expect a purge to have the same results for any package.
> We do seem to be pseudo-enforcing some rules around this via bug filings
> based on puiparts and the puiparts results presented on the QA pages.
> Those rules should probably at least be documented in the devref.
Absolutly.
cheers,
Holger
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