Re: namespace conflict != package Conflict?
Adam Majer <adamm@zombino.com> wrote:
> Sebastian Kuzminsky wrote:
> >Hi folks, I have a noob question for you. I maintain the Cogito package
> >(my first), and it wants to install an executable as /usr/bin/git. The
> >GNU Interactive Tools package (git) also wants to install an executable
> >as /usr/bin/git. To avoid this conflict I made cogito Conflict with git.
> >
> >
> >
> Of course this is *seriously* wrong. Why are you preventing people from
> using git and cogito together?
As I see it, it's not _me_ preventing them from being used together,
it's Linus Torvalds, the upstream developer of git-as-in-cogito, who
chose a conflicting name for his project. The problem has been pointed
out to him and he doesnt care:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git&m=111350397024057&w=2
> >I have been told by Jurij Smakov that this is "seriously wrong", and
> >I'm asking for help here. What's the proper way to handle this situation?
>
> rename /usr/bin/git to /usr/bin/cogito-git or whatever. It is not that hard.
That's true Adam: renaming a file is not hard... But in this case it
has terrible consequences.
Naming it "cogito-git" makes no sense at all. Cogito uses git, but
git doesnt know or care about cogito. That'd be like naming glibc
"mozilla-glibc", because mozilla uses glibc.
Renaming it something else, like "git.scm" or "git.debian" or
"git.not-gnu-interactive-tools" or something, _might_ make sense, except
then we'd have an incompatible debian-specific fork of git/cogito.
People coming from other systems will correctly percieve this as
debian-induced breakage. Users downloading helper scripts and finding
cookbook recipies on mailing list etc will discover that they are
incompatible with the rest of the universe.
That seems like too high a price to pay.
--
Sebastian Kuzminsky
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