Bug#614907: node: name conflicts with node.js interpreter
Package: node
Version: 0.3.2-7.1
Severity: serious
Justification: policy §10.1
Tags: upstream
Hi,
Both LinuxNode (package "node") and node.js (package "nodejs") are
designed to be accessed through the command name "node". There seems
to be no agreement[1][2] in Debian about what should be done with that
name. Therefore both binaries must be renamed.
John Goerzen provided some useful advice[3]:
| ... resulting in considerable confusion from many people, given that
| much documentation out there refers to call and listen. I, for one,
| was rather puzzled, especially since there is also an ax25_call which
| does something different.
|
| Not saying it was a bad choice, but just that this was what the result
| was. Much existing documentation is confusing to Debian users.
|
| Also, it should be stated that /usr/sbin/node is normally started from
| ax25d, which is somewhat analogous to inetd. It is not normally
| invoked by users (though it could be). Renaming it will break servers
| unless users are well aware.
This says to me:
- the renaming ought to be documented in README.Debian and NEWS.Debian
- it would be nice to track down documentation in other packages to
add a note to, too
- it would be especially nice to help people update their ax25d.conf.
Luckily, ax25d.conf is a conffile shipped by ax25-tools, so
tweaking the version ax25-tools ships should already help (and if
we want to be especially kind, providing a migration tool to be
invoked by hand).
- a migration period in testing/sid (but hopefully not in stable)
during which node is a script that prints a warning and runs
ax25_node might be appropriate.
If there is any way I can help, please feel free to ask.
Regards,
Jonathan
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/09/msg00465.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/02/msg00163.html
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/02/msg00191.html
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