Re: i

[Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au>]

luther@skyinet.net writes:
> i had just an idea concerning too short binary names.
> why not change them to something like :
> package.name
> or package-name

Personally, I'm not sure what we're making all the fuss about.

Still, a couple of thoughts, some of which have already been mentioned
and one of my own:

The current policy -- whatever's fine until and unless it causes a
conflict, at which point we get one or both to change the program
name.

I don't really think chris-cust and kin really belong in main. They
seem to me more the sort of thing you find on a home page somewhere
and then install, rather than something that's an integral part of
your OS. I don't have a problem with it including things like `i' and
`l' and so on, but it does seem to me that it clutters the
distribution a bit.

I do think it's probably better if Debian itself doesn't use any one
or two letter identifiers, like `pm'.

Anyway, the one (probably not very) new thought that I did have. 

One thing that might be worth considering, if we do come to a
situation where two programs have the same name and different
popularity, and both with enough of a following to make wholesale
renaming of either a pain, we could misuse the `alternatives'
mechanism to link, say, rc -> plan9-rc or foobar-rc depending on the
preference of the installer.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.

      ``It's not a vision, or a fear. It's just a thought.''


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