Re: Alternative program versions (eg vi)

[Richard Kettlewell <richard@elmail.co.uk>]

Bill Mitchell writes:

>This seems like it'll require a lot of coordination between
>maintainers.  What about a conflictor who mistakenly ignores this and
>installs his program directly into the place where this had put a
>link?

I don't know how well organised vi-clones have been in the past but in
the general case of conflicting alternatives, people making mistakes
in this area cannot cause the situation to be worse than it is now -
and in fact it's better, because we have localised the bug to a
particular package, and know exactly where the fix needs to be
applied.

>Is this now mandated?
>
>If this is now mandated, will the priority-assigner please advise me
>what priority I should be using for elvis (installs alternatives vi,
>ex, input, and view in usr/bin and vi.1, ex.1, input.1, and view.1 in
>/usr/man/man1) -- other vi clones install other alternatives to some
>of these.

Perhaps this problem could be solved by discussion between the
maintainers of vi clones?  OTOH perhaps this is an area which needs
central decisions.

-- 
Richard Kettlewell
<richard@elmail.co.uk>                  http://www.elmail.co.uk/staff/richard/