Limit customizations for mere Ubuntu localization packages

It's been a while since we discussed this, but it occurred to me that we didn't really drill it down to the specifics.

So I think the following should be allowed for ubuntu-defaults-* packages:

- Additional dependencies (depends.txt/recommends.txt)
- Arbitrary code to customize stuff on the CD (hooks/chroot); e. g. the Chinese image uses this to remove the English LibreOffice translations and pinyin ibus module, i. e. stuff that becomes redundant.
- All i18n settings (i18n/*)
- Default radio stations (multimedia/radiostations.txt)
- webbrowser search engine (webbrowser/searchengine.txt)
- Additional default bookmarks (bookmarks-{menu,toolbar}.txt)

The following should only be allowed for packages which are not named ubuntu-defaults-*, i. e. OEM projects:

- Desktop background (desktop/background.jpg)
- Preferred applications to open documents (desktop/default-applications.txt)
- Session (desktop/default-session.txt), e. g. ubuntu-2d or xubuntu

The following are not quite clear, and they might or might not be appropriate:

- Additional starters in the unity launcher (unity/launchers.txt and desktop/*.desktop)
- webbrowser start page; the French image uses our layout and ubuntu client ID, but adds an additional link to the French shop; the current Chinese ISO uses http://www.hao222.com/index.htm?tn=ubuntuu_hao_pg, which was requested by the OEM team back then, but might not be what we want?

I think:

- webbrowser search engine (webbrowser/searchengine.txt)
Should *not* be allowed.

I think:
- Additional default bookmarks (bookmarks-{menu,toolbar}.txt)
*should* be allowed, but within reason. IE, no adding tons of irrelevant bookmarks.

For the web browser start page, I think that we should have Canonical's OLS team provide a localized start page to local communities that request it.

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-defaults-builder - 0.24

---------------
ubuntu-defaults-builder (0.24) precise; urgency=low

  * debian/copyright, template/debian/copyright: Update to copyright format
    1.0.
  * debian/control, template/debian/control: Bump Standards-Version to 3.9.3.
  * Drop support for webbrowser/offline-startpage.txt, as this is not actually
    configurable in Firefox, and we do not support other browsers at the
    moment. (LP: #950097)
  * bin/ubuntu-defaults-image: Explicitly set LB_SYSLINUX_THEME, to not rely
    on live-build's static default (which is "ubuntu-oneiric" right now).
    (LP: #910859)
  * bin/ubuntu-defaults-image, man/ubuntu-defaults-image.1: Add --keep-apt
    option to not clean up /var/lib/apt/lists/*_Packages from the live system.
    This will significantly enlarge the resulting ISO image, but will make
    package related operations work without an initial "apt-get update" run.
    (LP: #942180)
  * template/desktop/default-{session,applications}.txt,
    template/webbrowser/searchengine.txt: Add comments that these files may
    not be changed for Ubuntu localizations, only for derivatives and OEM
    projects.
  * test/run: Change package name to "defaults-test", as with
    "ubuntu-defaults-test" we are going to fail for some customizations.
  * bin/dh_ubuntu_defaults: Check if template file has a "NotUbuntu:" tag, and
    if so, disallow changing defaults if the package name starts with
    "ubuntu-". (LP: #881371)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:03:23 +0100