On 1/29/20 2:19 PM, Simon McVittie wrote:
I think we have a fairly good picture of the costs that would be incurred from using alternatives: more interacting code paths to test, potentially more configurations that are technically possible but are not considered supported, and packages with "Depends: systemd (>= 321)" (or indeed systemd itself, in the case of systems using it to boot) not being able to rely on having access to all systemd 321 features, which doesn't seem like a least-astonishment situation to be in. However, Michael, or anyone else opposing this change: if you have anything to add to those, please do.
There are some more that come to mind: * if we convert the exiting name to an alternative, there is the somewhat interesting work of actually changing a file over from an executable shipped in the package to an alternative, which would normally be set up by postinst. That could leave an uncomfortably large window during upgrade where the system would be broken (and possibly not boot) if interrupted. And, unlike the related dpkg-divert challenge, this would be on the vast majority of Debian systems, not only those where opensysusers is installed. * if we use a new, different name, then we've introduced a Debian-specific interface. One of the nice things about most of the Linux world standardizing on systemd is increased cross-distro compatibility; here we'd be breaking it. * regardless of which name (existing or new), alternatives can wind up pointing at nothing during the upgrade. Or if the upgrade is interrupted. I seem to recall that's one reason /bin/sh was never an alternative; seems like there is a cost in increased fragility (again, on all systems, not just ones with opensysusers).
