Re: loginutils package, etc.
We've made it very easy to manage packages, and having a few more should not
be a problem. I'm jumping in late to this argument, but I generally prefer
to let others do the arguing.
The problem with your proposal is that you are usurping the role of the
upstream maintainer and creating two new _upstream_source_ packages. If
that's your real intent, please maintain those source packages for the
entire Linux world, not just Debian, and have them replace "miscutils",
etc. in the entire Linux universe.
I maintained miscutils for Debian a while ago. I really wish it wasn't
a hodgepodge of programs, and I wanted to break it up, but did not have
time. Complicating the dependency graph by making binary package
depend on more than one upstream source package without solving the
upstream problem will not make it simpler to maintain, as we'll be
building a big package every time one of the source packages that
composes it changes.
> I will eliminate two packages - chfn and last.
Please offer a few sentences of justification for this.
> Several programs will definitely be added - vipw, vigr, ipcs, ipcrm,
> and which.
You should consider a separate binary package for "ipcs" and "ipcrm".
> I am considering three other programs - hostid, namei, and whereis.
> Please give me your opinions on whether you think these three
> are important.
> cfdisk miscutils fsutils
> fdisk miscutils fsutils
Right here we run into a problem. "cfdisk" and "fdisk" are being replaced
by fdisk3 and cfdisk3 (as soon as "cfdisk3" is done). They will be in a
separate source package. Do we have to replace one of your big packages every
time there's a change to cfdisk3? It's going to be in flux for a while.
> mkfs miscutils fsutils
Which source package are you getting "fsck" and "mkfs" from? They are in
miscutils and (I think) e2fsutils.
> getty miscutils loginutils
I think "getty" belongs in a separate package. There are too many good
replacements for it, and we should move in the direction of accepting one
of them as our "main" getty.
> The two new packages will make any future Debian upgrades, such as
> fdisk3.0 or shadow password support, much easier.
Please demonstrate this proposition.
I think it would be nice if you'd draw a chart, not very unlike your first
chart, but one of programs, their _source_ packages, and the binary packages
you propose them to be in. Then try to segregate them so that binary packages
don't contain more than one source package and they are still logical
groupings. You may end up with 6 or 7 packages, I don't think that's a problem.
Thanks
Bruce
--
Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com> A campaigner for Clinton and against Censorship.
Toy Story: $183M and counting. At $184M it will beat the #1 movie of 1995.
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