Re: [Debtags-devel] Re: Dummy packages and metapackages (call for consistency in the descriptions)

[Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk>]

[originally to debtags-devel, reposted to CCs]

>> Enrico Zini wrote:         

Thanks for this, Enrico!

>>  * Dummy packages

It may be too late to standardise on "transitional packages", but
I've always thought that was more self-explanatory. 

>>  * Metapackages

Adeodato Simó wrote:
>   Would it be unreasonable to ask that metapackages have to be _empty_,
>   i.e., that all their functionality it's in their control file?

Compare gcc, which works similarly to pull in a gcc-*.  I recently
found that I had only gcc-* installed on a machine, not gcc itself,
with the result that a user's compiles failed - the /usr/bin/gcc
symlink is in gcc!   But gcc doesn't claim to be a "metapackage";
it's a "dependency package".  That's hardly self-explanatory, but
I agree that it's a distinction worth making.

Indeed, if dummy transitional packages were all called transitional
packages, we'd be able to distinguish between "dummy" metapackages 
and ones that contain files...
-- 
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)