Bug#919951: ocaml builder must not be called `dune' or provide /usr/bin/dune
Package: tech-ctte
In #919622 and the associated debian-devel thread,
"Conflict over /usr/bin/dune"
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2019/01/msg00227.html
the file conflict over /usr/bin/dune was discussed.
The rough consensus of the debian-devel thread was that /usr/bin/dune
ought definitely not to be taken by the ocaml build system, and that
the best claim on it was the C++ library which already provides a
number of /usr/bin/dune?* binaries.
Instead, the maintainers of the ocaml package reassigned the bug
against their `dune' package to the whitedune package, which
previously provided /usr/bin/dune as a compat symlink.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=919622
They used the phrase
"As discussed on debian-devel"
which is very misleading because it makes it sounds like there was a
consensus for this course of action, whereas the opposite is true.
Apparently as a result of this there was an NMU of `whitedune' to drop
the symlink /usr/bin/dune.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=919622#58
The maintainers of the ocaml `dune' have now uploaded `dune' (the
ocaml package) with /usr/bin/dune and Breaks+Replaces to claim the
file.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=919622#99
Meanwhile there seems to have been no contact with the maintainers of
the C++ library which is the only hit on Wikipedia for
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(software)
(Amazingly, this is still true at the time of writing even though
I referred to this fact in the debian-devel thread.)
Note that this ocaml tool `dune' was previously known as `jbuilder'.
It has nothing to do with Java AIUI. No-one has suggested a plausible
charitable explanation for why the ocaml upstream made such
egregiously bad naming mistakes twice in succession.
Additionally the binary package name `dune' for the ocaml tool is bad,
too.
Please would the Technical Committee:
* Declare that no-one is allowed the name /usr/bin/dune other than
the C++ library dune-common or its friends.
* Declare that no-one is allowed the binary package name
/usr/bin/dune other than the C++ library dune-common
or its friends.
* Declare that the ocaml build system should choose a new source
package name and use it henceforth.
I am about to file an RC bug against the `dune' package, blocked by
this one.
Ian.
--
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
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