Re: The purpose of /etc/default ?

[Jari Aalto <jari dot aalto at cante dot net>]

Brian Dessent <brian-Uo+tbPwr0tHR7s880joybQ@public.gmane.org> writes:
>
>> > What does /etc/defaults mean under Cygwin? This should be documented
>> > in the package contributors guide as well.
>
> In debian, /etc/default/ is a directory of mostly empty (or very small)
> files.  The way it is meant to work is that each /etc/init.d/foobar
> script first 
>
> Note that these are NOT the actual primary configuration files that the
> daemon uses ... These are *not* templates and
> they *are* meant to be user-edited.

In Debian /etc/deaults contain's confiuration files in spirit of the
FHS which reserves whole /etc hierarcgy to include configuration files
only.

        /etc : Host-specific system configuration
        http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE6
        ...
        The /etc hierarchy contains configuration files. A
        "configuration file" is a local file used to control the
        operation of a program; it must be static and cannot be an
        executable binary.

> That is completely different than cygwin's use of /etc/defaults/, which
> is meant to be a tree of default conf files, to be copied into /etc/,
> and used as the actual primary configuration file for whatever package. 
> They are *not* meant to be user-edited.

The question is, is the /etc/defaults in Cygwin proper place to store
the non-user editable files that are ment to be used only as
"templates", which new upgrades will always overwrite.

Would it be better to reserve whole /etc off limits and make it user's
territory. Perhaps the defaults would be better stored under the
individual packages, like in

    /share/<package>/defaults

Or along with the documentation? This would be more near to the
instructions (README*) where the seup of the program may be explained
in full:

    /usr/share/doc/<package>/{examples | defaults}/

Jari