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Re: Package naming rant



On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 6:47 PM Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> wrote:
On 04/21/2016 05:27 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> This argument seems to suppose that no-one unfamiliar with a package
> ever reads its name.  This is an astonishing assumption.

In the general case, I'd agree. But we're not talking about "a package"
here, but about a complete *suite* of a complex cloud system.

The argument is that you can't use OpenStack without at least learning
what the components are, which makes it pointless (and in fact very
annoying) to prefix them with openstack-. I'd say it take at least a
month to understand all the interactions.

I don't want to use OpenStack. I want to find a fuel logging application to keep track of the expenses in my car. I search packages for "fuel" and find Fuel. So I install it. At this point there is very little to tell me if those 50 packages it is now puling in are some libraries like boost or KDE or it is actually a network of support services that will be turning my laptop into an enterprise cluster service provider. The first would be fine, the second is rather obviously not what I wanted.

That is why use of a package is pointless without some kind of wider system, the name of that system must be at least in the short description if not in the name, but also a description of OpenStack must be in the long description so that I can figure out what that big system is and if I want it or not without having to google stuff from the description.
 

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