update-grub again (Re: ping (update-grub2))

[Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>]

On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 08:26:48AM +0100, Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:

I'm terribly late at repliing here :-) - sorry about that.  It's about lack of
time, not lack of interest.

> On Monday 27 November 2006 18:00, Robert Millan wrote:
> > No comments?  Are you interested in getting this into the main grub tree?
> > In my opinion, since update-grub needs a rewrite it's a good oportunity to
> > merge this now and unify grub.cfg generation across distributions
> > (something that wasn't possible with the old update-grub because of
> > copyright issues).
> >
> > That said, if you don't like the idea then we could proceed adding it in
> > debian, but that might close the door to merging in the future (maintaining
> > the script in debian ourselves implies accepting contributions from many
> > people without any paperwork arrangements).
> 
> I describe my own opinion. If others do not agree, let me know.
> 
> If the script is generic enough, and other projects are willing to use it, it 
> is convenient to put it in official versions ("official" means "upstream" in 
> Debian, but I don't like the term "upstream" very much, BTW). So, in this 
> case, I accept it. But if it is used only for Debian, I don't think it is 
> worth doing.

The script is not Debian-specific in nature, and it can be used by other
distributors.  Of course, since I wrote it in Debian it's not known to work
elsewhere, but there's nothing inherently unportable about it.

> I know it is not so nice to put distribution-specific scripts in official 
> versions with my past experience, because official versions are not always 
> synchronized with distribution versions, so when a script in an official 
> version is "outdated" for a distribution, it is necessary to locally patch 
> the script, and this effort can be quite painful, if you always need to make 
> patches for every version.
> 
> That's why we don't have the directory "debian" any longer. We had it in GRUB 
> legacy in version 0.5.92 or something when Gordon was the maintainer of the 
> GRUB package in Debian. But this became really annoying after Gordon got 
> inactive, because I had no idea on how to maintain it, as I was not a Debian 
> user then. And, someone (I think he was Jason Thomas) complained, and I 
> decided to drop it from the official version.

I understand your concern.  Shouldn't be a problem with update-grub IMHO.

If you're ok with it, I'll refurbish it into a patch against CVS so that you
can confirm the changes.

-- 
Robert Millan

My spam trap is honeypot@aybabtu.com.  Note: this address is only intended
for spam harvesters.  Writing to it will get you added to my black list.