Bug#1039979: /var/run and /var/lock should not be absolute symlinks

On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 11:03:38AM +0000, Sean Whitton wrote:
> Russ Allbery [08/Feb 11:36am -08] wrote:
> > This feels like the sort of change that maybe we should discuss on
> > debian-devel if it feels like we have consensus here on the Policy list.
> 
> I think if the maintainers of the packages in which the change would be
> effected are on board, we don't need to do that.

For /var/run and /var/lock, I believe systemd already has those symlinks
as relative.

I also think it would be better to have them relative, and the main
reason I reassigned this from base-files to debian-policy is that I
wanted to avoid anybody telling me that I was violating policy by
doing the change on my own...

While we are at it, I wonder if we could actually deprecate those
locations for forky, and what would be the steps for doing so.

There is a small anomaly in the way base-files handles /var/lock
(see #1082498) and Helmut tells me that fixing the anomaly the right
way might require additional code similar to the one introduced in
base-files 13.3 for the usr-merge.

I don't have any hurry in fixing the anomaly, but maybe if we
deprecate /var/lock first, fixing the anomaly would be easier
(i.e. not requiring use-merge-grade machinery).

Thanks.