Re: Files which want to be different in different packages

[Raul Miller <rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu>]

Hmm..

Bill, what I think you're saying is, given packages which do not
"Conflict:", and files within the packages which have the same path,
we should be able to define a clear and simple mechanism for dpkg to
use in these cases.

Hypothetically, given packages elvis, nvi, vim, vi++ and vip which all
provide the executable /usr/bin/vi, if only one is installed this
executable would be /usr/bin/vi.  However, if all five were installed
the executables would be /usr/bin/vi.{elvis,nvi,vim,vi++,vip} and
/usr/bin/vi would be a soft link pointing to whichever "got there
first".

Presumably, we could have some sort of follow on program (or dpkg
option) which would prompt the sysadmin for what to do when the
concept of "which got there first" is ambiguous.

Am I putting words in your mouth or is this reasonably close to what
you were thinking?

Ian, I think this follows pretty closely along the lines of what you
were proposing -- it just dumps more of the work on dpkg.  I think
this would be reasonable, should we agree that the policy this
implements is reasonable.

-- 
Raul