Hi Antoine, Antoine Jacoutot wrote on Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 02:26:12PM +0200: > On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 02:21:38PM +0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: >> Jan Stary wrote on Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 08:17:49AM +0200:
>>> Should mk.conf(5) be present in /etc/examples, >>> or is it not there on purpose? >> Not every potential configuration file needs an example. >> As a general direction, i'd rather aim for reducing the number of >> files in /etc/examples/ than proliferating it. The problem is that >> the directory dilutes documentation. Instead of having all the >> documentation in one place, it makes you look in two places, the >> manual and /etc/examples/, doubling the work you have to do when >> changing a configuration, and creating a risk that some people look >> at one place and don't even realize the other exists. It also >> doubles the documentation maintenance work and the risk of documentation >> getting outdated and contradictory, so grand total, it kind of >> quadruples the risk of people misconfiguring their system. >> >> The concept was introduced to reduce the number of files in /etc/, >> and that worked well. That doesn't mean all the examples files > There's also a side effect that sysmerge used. If an example file > changes, it could mean the configuration syntax changed -- sysmerge > will warn you. If we are to remove half of the examples (which I have > no problem with), then I don't think sysmerge should warn anymore. I have no problem with removing that warning feature if you think that it simplifies the sysmerge code and makes maintenance easier. Then again, there doesn't seem anything wrong with that warning staying around even if the number of files should ever dwindle. Some of the more complicated will very probably stay for a long time, and for those, such a warning is potentially useful. For files like /etc/examples/hosts.lpd, the warning is already unimportant right now, deleting them makes no real difference for sysmerge users. Yours, Ingo
