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Bug#810018: procps: Please (re)consider shipping procps pidof

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Dear procps maintainer,
dear sysvinit maintainers,

while we try to reach consensus in #1131136 on the best way to remove 
the Essential bit from `sysvinit-utils`, I think we can focus on a 
simpler task: moving `pidof` from `sysvinit-utils` to `procps`.

Do you procps and sysvinit maintainers agree with the following plan?

The situation:

* No maintainer script uses `pidof` anymore (the 4 low-popcon remaining 
packages will be NMU'd soon; patches ready).

* There are 94 packages/programs that execute `pidof` at runtime and not 
Depends: on `procps`. (Worst-case number: some of these are probably 
false positives found in dead-code branches.)

* The code snippets where pidof is used in these 94 packages can be 
inspected at [1].

* Pretty much all these 94 packages use `pidof` without options.

* The only options used are `-s`, `-x`, `-q`, and `-o` (respectively, 4, 
6, 1, and 2 occurrences; 10 affected packages).

* Both implementations of `pidof` support these options, with the same 
semantics/output.

The plan:

1. I will announce a MBF on d-devel@, with a request for the 94 packages 
that use `pidof` at runtime to add `Depends: procps` (the email template 
can be seen at [2], the dd-list at [3]).

2. We will wait until the 94 packages (or the vast majority of them) has 
been fixed. Pings will be made, patches will be offered.

3. The severity of the bugs still open will be raised to RC.

4. Inside a single dinstall window, a modified version of 
`sysvinit-tools` (without `pidof`) and a modified version of `procps` 
(with `pidof`) will be uploaded. (WIP patches can be found at [4] and [5].)

Does this sound right? Is anything missing?

Unless you're strongly against it (or you greenlight it earlier), I'd 
like to propose the MBF on d-devel@ in one week.

Regards,

[1] 
https://people.debian.org/~gioele/pidof-usage/pidof-20260312/mbf-runtime/snippets/
[2] 
https://people.debian.org/~gioele/pidof-usage/pidof-20260312/mbf-runtime/mbf-text.txt
[3] 
https://people.debian.org/~gioele/pidof-usage/pidof-20260312/mbf-runtime/dd-list.txt
[4] 
https://salsa.debian.org/gioele/sysvinit/-/compare/master...pidof-remove?from_project_id=31168
[5] 
https://salsa.debian.org/gioele/procps/-/compare/master...pidof-enable?from_project_id=10120

-- 
Gioele Barabucci

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Bug#810018: procps: Please (re)consider shipping procps pidof Gioele Barabucci <gioele@svario.it> - 2026-04-27 23:00 +0200
  Bug#810018: procps: Please (re)consider shipping procps pidof Craig Small <csmall@debian.org> - 2026-04-28 09:10 +0200
    Bug#810018: procps: Please (re)consider shipping procps pidof Gioele Barabucci <gioele@debian.org> - 2026-04-28 09:50 +0200

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