Hi,

	I would like to discuss about current webapp-config behaviour concerning 
protecting/drop user modifications on webapps.
(http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-437655-start-0-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-.html)

Here is the current behaviour :

$ webapp-config -I -h localhost -d test/ma phpmyadmin 2.6.0
$ cd /var/www/localhost/htdocs/test/ma
$ echo 1 > new_file
$ echo 2 >> index.php
$ webapp-config -U -h localhost -d test/ma phpmyadmin 2.8.0_beta1
* Upgrading phpmyadmin-2.6.0 to phpmyadmin-2.8.0_beta1
*   Installed by root on 2006-03-08 15:15:24
*   Config files owned by 0:0
!cfgpro config.inc.php
!time index.php
!empty /var/www/localhost/cgi-bin
!empty /var/www/localhost/icons
clean

--- /var/www/localhost/htdocs/test/ma
*   Creating required directories
*   Linking in required files
*     This can take several minutes for larger apps
*   Files and directories installed
* Install completed - success
$ ls -A | grep '^\.'
.webapp
.webapp-phpmyadmin-2.8.0_beta1
$ ls new_file
new_file


=> added files are keeped, but modified ones are simply overwritten.

I think that droping user modifications to a webapp is quite grave. There is 
some reasons to modifify a webapp :
- bug fixes
- add some features, often about security, like adding verification code for 
registrations forms...
- disabling some features, to prevent clients to use them
- ....

And if you want to upgrade to the latest version of this webapp, you will lose 
all these changes!

I'm agree to the goal for after a webapp-config -U, your webapp is directly 
functionnal. 
But, I prefer waiting 3 minutes by doing etc-update and merging changes with 
the new version, 
than losing all my changes, temporaly block access to clients for security 
reason, and redo all my changes if I found time and motivation to do my work 
a second time....
I mean, erasing user modification would put the webapp in a 'non-functionnal' 
state, and for a long time.... that's not the goal of a webapp installation 
tool.

So why not use the CONFIG_PROTECT from make.conf to auto-protect server-owned 
files?

Thanks,

Panard
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