Package: debian-policy Version: 2.5.0.0 Recently on irc there was a complaint that some newly compiled programs now use /var/mail in place of /var/spool/mail.
This came up before and we had a nice big flamewar about it with the help of the LSB and FHS people, trying to decide where to put the incoming mailboxen. It was determined then that either location should be considered acceptable, but for now at least both must exist---one a symlink to the other. Whelp, now software is starting to use it and is breaking because Debian doesn't have a /var/mail. I filed a priority undefined bug against base-files requesting that if /var/mail does not exist a symlink from that to /var/spool/mail should be created. He disagreed with me and suggested I take it up with -policy (which I am doing..) I believe there is no harm in creating this symlink. Santiago believes that if we start creating symlinks we won't be able to tell which software is using /var/mail and which are using /var/spool/mail. He cited that we don't use /usr/spool with a symlink for a reason, though I would argue that FSSTND called for /var/spool to replace /usr/spool. I believe since FHS 2.1 does/will require both be present, this is a non-issue. I believe the most reasonable thing to do is for base-files to create a symlink if /var/mail does not exist. This is the best way to handle transition to /var/mail for an existing installation. Doing otherwise would not be following the least surprise model. On a new installation, I think the base tarball should create /var/mail as a directory and make /var/spool/mail the symlink. This satisfies the spirit of the FHS, to which is to move closer to the /var/mail which is used on most other unices, while maintaining the backward compatibility which was so important to people for obvious reasons. -- System Information Debian Release: potato Kernel Version: Linux icarus2 2.2.6-ac1 #2 Wed Apr 21 08:45:48 PDT 1999 i586 unknown
