Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > severity 379089 serious > thanks > > While it is true any file can be changed to change behaviour > for TeX (like things can be changed in /usr/include/foo.h to change > behaviour of a -dev package), any file with a name *.cnf is meant to > be a configuration file, and must, in order to meet policy > requirements, live under /etc.
I am not convinced things are as clear-cut as you see them. Please read on. First of all, please note that the sentence in the TeX Policy talks about "TeX input files", there are other files in a TeX system that are clearly configuration files, and are installed in /etc/texmf, anyway. In fact, in a sense (following the TeX Policy's spirit instead of its letter, which may be suboptimal) the file in question is not a TeX input file, so we should have installed it in /etc/texmf/web2c even with our current Policy. One point that is unclear to me is this phrase from the Debian Policy: ,---- |Typically, configuration files are intended to be modified by the |system administrator (if needed or desired) to conform to local policy |or to provide more useful site-specific behavior. `---- Most of the files in question (not the one that raised this thread, I admit) are rather meant to be changed by individual users to fit their needs, or even on a per-document basis. A site-wide change on a real multi-user system won't make sense. Summary: I believe that we need to rephrase the TeX Policy. But this requires not just to specifiy that each "cfg" file must be in /etc. Instead, I think we need to find a distinction between - files that can be used to modify the behavior of programs, and/or files that make sense to customize site-wide behavior on a multiuser system (I just cannot find an example of a file that would only fulfill the second half of the sentence) => must go to /etc - files that can be used to modifiy the typesetting of documents => should not go to /etc What do you think? Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
