"Chatty" config files in /etc

[Garance A Drosehn]

At 5:21 PM -0400 8/31/06, John Baldwin wrote:
>On Thursday 31 August 2006 16:09, Garance A Drosehn wrote:
>  > At 8:48 AM -0400 8/31/06, John Baldwin wrote:
>  > >
>>  >This is already spelled /usr/share/examples/etc in FreeBSD.
>>
>>  Actually, as it stands right now that is not quite the same
>>  thing.  Right now /usr/share/examples/etc holds *exact copies*
>>  of the files we install in /etc, for the reasons as described
>>  in /usr/share/examples/etc/README.examples :
>
>I was thinking of /usr/share/examples/ppp (I thought it had
>been under /usr/share/examples/etc/ppp).  Having
>/usr/share/examples/etc in its current form really isn't all
>that useful as for one thing it has rotted a bunch.

Hmm.  I am not sure that it has rotted all that much.  The list
of files might not be complete, but I've done a 'diff' between
the files in there and files under /etc, and they all seem to
be exactly the same.  (done on 6.x-stable under PPC, not i386)

>I think instead that we should repurpose it for expanded
>versions of files.

I have no objection to this.  I do think it is kinda nice to
have it the way it is, but I have no objection if others feel it
should be changed.  I did find it a little confusing to have
both /usr/share/examples/pf and /usr/share/examples/etc/pf.conf .

>The current format of /etc/printcap should be an example
>file for example (it fits with /usr/share/examples/ppp style)
>and I think we shouldn't even have an /etc/printcap installed
>by default.

As the maintainer of lpr, I'd say that I want some /etc/printcap
to exist.  I just want it to be a very short file, with almost
no comments.  Almost all of the comments in the current version
should be moved to a separate "examples" file.

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =               drosehn at rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer               or   gad at FreeBSD.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;             Troy, NY;  USA