>> On Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:20:04 +0900 (JST),
>> Atsuhito Kohda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> From: Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re:
> Bug#189370: acknowledged by developer (irrelevant) Date: Fri, 18
> Apr 2003 04:21:17 -0500
>> >> I have an impression that such Policy understanding prevents
>> >> sane advance of packages.
>>
>> I am sorry, I do think that not preserving user changes is not an
>> advancement.
> I said to you once before but the new mechanism preserves user
> change much clearly than the former one within the new mechanism.
> It could lost user change only at transition from the old mechanism
> (conffile) to the new mechanism (configuration file).
So? You could have informed the user about the magnitude of
the changes in the preinst, and let the USER make the decision;
letting the package fail until they handled the configuration file
issue. Alternately, change the location of the file the program looks
at and inform the user (this is the less preferred option).
Usurping the users right to make the decision, and using that
to cloak a violation of policy is a flawed argument.
>> My as yet incomplete mechanism is to use debconf andother means to
>> generate a current configuration file on the fly, and use ucf to
>> prompt, somewhat like dpkg, as below:
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Configuration file \`$dest_file' ==> File on system created by you
>> or by a script. ==> File also in package provided by package
>> maintainer. What would you like to do about it ? Your options
>> are: Y or I : install the package maintainer's version N or O :
>> keep your currently-installed version D : show the differences
>> between the versions 3 or T : show a thre way difference between
>> current, older, and new versions of the file M : Do a 3 way merge
>> between current, older, and new versions of the file [Very
>> Experimental] Z : start a new shell to examine the situation The
>> default action is to keep your current version.
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> This doesn't work for texmf.cnf which also I told you once before.
And why does it not?
> If the default is to keep your current version then many TeX
> related packages should fail to install.
So? The user made the choice As long as you inform the suer of
the consequences of their action in the preinst, it is their machine,
they may choose to have tetex break until they decide to deal with
the issue, or they may decide to go with the new configuration
file. Either way, the decision is not yours t make. it is the end
users.
> The current mechanism is, at least at present, only one solution
> which provides sufficiently flexible handling and also preserves
> user changes.
I beg to differ.
manoj
--
Bones: "The man's DEAD, Jim!"
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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