[arch-general] Replace dcron once again?

[Heiko Baums]

Am Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:50:22 +0100
schrieb Pierre Schmitz <pierre at archlinux.de>:

> Let's not rush things:
> 
> * Make sure that dcron is really a dead project and there is no chance
> for an update. Dropping a core package just because of one bug (which
> might get fixed) does not sound sane.

See the both URLs Florian has given:

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681
Bug report opened: 14 March 2010
First comment from upstream dev, Jim Pryor: 14 April 2010
Last comment from upstream dev: 22 September 2010

http://repo.or.cz/w/dcron.git
Latest change: 3 Feb 2010

Maybe someone should contact Jim first and ask him, if he still
maintains dcron and if he will fix this bug.

> * The crontab from dcron and fcron are not compatible. So fcron cannot
> be a simple drop-in repalcement

What are the differences? I didn't need to change anything when I
switched from fcron to the new dcron. If I had to change a bit it was
so easy, that I can't remember anymore. The only thing which has
changed was the command to edit the crontab. It's crontab for dcron and
fcrontab for fcron. But for such changes an announcement can be written
in the News section of the website, in the mailing list and in the
package's post_install(). See the latest xorg upgrade.

And Florian's suggestion was not about removing dcron from the repos,
but only to change the default cron daemon, which is installed without
the user's interaction during installation, from dcron to fcron. So only
new installations would be affected by this change anyway.

> * Some users might prefer dcron; simply replacing it is just not how
> we roll. People are free to install fcron if they like.

I personally haven't seen big differences between fcron and dcron from
the administrator's point of view.

Heiko