Re: Automatically detecting package file conflicts without dependency conflicts?
On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 05:35:16PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 05:28:35PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Bugs like 806253 come up fairly regularly in unstable: two packages
> > contain the same file, but don't have a Conflicts or Replaces
> > relationship. Renamed packages seem like the most common case, though
> > this can happen other ways as well.
>
> > The archive software already does a variety of checks on packages before
> > accepting them into the archive. Do we have enough data and metadata
> > available that the archive software could automatically reject uploads
> > of .deb files that contain the same file path as another package without
> > a Conflicts or Replaces expressed against that package?
>
> No, because packages can divert files belonging to other packages, in which
> case no conflict is required; and diversions happen via maintainer scripts,
> so correctly detecting them is non-trivial.
There's no need for correctness, if the archive were to implement some
sort of warning mechanism:
If a package gets uploaded that *introduces* a file conflict (i.e., the
package passed through NEW or contains files that previous versions of
the package did not), the system could send an email to the maintainer
with a warning message stating that there's a file conflict and that if
that was unexpected, the maintainer might want to do something about it.
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