A package for orphaned sysvinit scripts

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-01-02 at 10:59, Matthew Vernon wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On 02/01/2021 15:22, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
> I should have known asking for feedback on 3 alternatives would
> result in someone suggesting a fourth ;-)

^_^

I don't have strong opinions on any of the three you suggested, and tend
to concur with the perspectives you outlined, but this seemed a good
place to suggest the thought I'd had and see whether it seemed viable or
should be discounted.

>> One thought I'd had, in reading the TC bug discussion, was of the
>> idea of having more-or-less a package per such init script. The
>> init-script package could then depend on the package which would
>> otherwise contain that init script. All of these binary packages
>> could be generated from a single source package.
> 
> Right; something like that might be the way to go if the TC rule that
> e.g. network-manager depend on a package that provides init 
> compatibility, but I think they're not going to do so.
> 
> So I think lots of tiny packages is worse for our users than one
> package with a number of sysvinit scripts in some of which they won't
> need. I think one orphaned-sysvinit-scripts package (which e.g.
> sysvinit-core could then Recommends:) is better?

There's certainly a tradeoff to be made, and I'm not going to say that
I'm in a strong position to argue for one side of the tradeoff over
another.

The package-per-init-script suggestion would mitigate the problems of
many unneeded init scripts cluttering up users' systems, and the
complexity of managing symlinks et cetera for a mass-init-scripts
package such as your initial three suggestions have involved, at the
costs of A: more load on the package-management system and the archive
and B: more trouble for sysadmins in getting the init scripts they *do*
want installed. (And also C: more work defining those package splits in
the source package, which for all I know could be a nontrivial load on
the maintainers.)

It would be possible to also have an empty orphaned-sysvinit-scripts
package which just depends on the various individual tiny packages
(whether via Depends: or Recommends:), so that people who do want to
just get all of them easily and don't care about the presence of
unneeded scripts can do so. That would mitigate cost B, but even make
cost A (and C) slightly worse than before.

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-init-diversity/attachments/20210102/9b0e12ea/attachment.sig>