Re: CVS commit: src/distrib/sets/lists/man

[jnemeth%victoria.tc.ca@localhost (John Nemeth)]

On Jan 23, 12:04am, Matthias Scheler wrote:
} On 2 Sep 2010, at 0:28, John Nemeth wrote:
} >     The npf.conf manpages were moved to section 5.  This should not
} > have been added back here.  You need to delete these files from your
} > destdir.
} 
} No, that's wrong. They are not only in the destdir, they are installed
} on a lot of systems and need to be removed. The instructions for the

     I doubt it was on "a lot of systems", it was probably only a few.

} > }  #
} > }  # Note: don't delete entries from here - mark them as "obsolete"
} instead.
} > }  #
} 
} It doesn't matter that "it was only a few days". There is a well defined

     It was two days and five hours.

} way how to handle renaming files. If people use it The Right Thing(TM)
} happens.

     I am well aware of what "The Right Thing(TM)" is.  However, for
such a short time period I would argue for simply removing the
entries.  Otherwise you get entries that are only useful to a handful
of people that clutter up the lists until the end of time.  Removing
obsolete files is one of the most time consuming parts of postinstall.
I have no problems with adding things to the list when it is necessary,
but this was borderline.

     BTW, the same issue pops up when a library version is bumped since
the old versions are deliberately not added to the obsolete lists so
that they don't get removed from systems that are being upgraded.  This
means that you have to be prepared to deal with the occassional failure
of this nature when doing update builds anyways.

}-- End of excerpt from Matthias Scheler