Comment 74 for bug 959037

Alkis: This relies on the assumption that NM's configuration text can be dropped in alongside whatever other configuration text is present and that dnsmasq will still work properly. This assumption is, er, questionable.

And this is also one answer to my question in #72. The "dnsmasq cascade" may waste resources but it has maintenance advantages. One dnsmasq process is under the control of NM. The other is under the control of the admin. They communicate with each other via a well defined protocol, RFC 1035.

(Another minor problem with your proposal as you phrased it is the following. The existence of /etc/init.d/dnsmasq does not entail that the dnsmasq is installed. The package could have been removed and not purged.)