We lack the right way to handle anacron in the LSB. There should be a way to configure whether each script should be run if missed (due to downtime, presumably). Running none or all is not ideal, but perhaps acceptable. Putting the information in the cron job itself is not a good option, if we really want to allow non-shell scripts. A configuration file under /etc/cron.* is also a bad idea.
Maybe /etc/cron.config/<package-name> where <package-name> is a configuration file containing the filename of the cron job (example: "/etc/cron.daily/<package-name") and whether it should be run if missed. Or perhaps /etc/cron.missed/<package-name> where the contents are simply the filename of a cron job to be run if missed. Other options: changing the cron job format (can it be done in a compatible, but sensible way?) or ignoring the issue completely. Any thoughts? - Dan P.S. I just noticed at least one mistake in draft 2 of the Cron job spec. It still talks about using /etc/cron.d for running jobs more often than daily, even though we now have cron.hourly. It should just talk about running jobs at intervals other than hourly, daily, etc.
