Re: Conflicting packages not of extra priority.
On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> I came in late to this discussion, so I asked Jules and John, privately,
> which point of policy was under discussion. They both agreed that the
> discussion is about the following paragraph:
>
> Section 2.2:
>
> `extra'
> This contains packages that conflict with others with higher
> priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you already know
> what they are or have specialised requirements.
>
> Now, Jules says that if optional package A conflicts with optional package
> B that package A must be given the new priority Extra.
Incidentally, or B, of course. Only one, whichever is decided.
>
> John disagrees, and so do I.
>
> The paragraph clearly states "higher priorities", not "the same priority",
> so I would say that Jules is incorrect.
> Jules, would you insist that a Required package that conflicts with
> another Required package should change its priority to Extra? This sounds
> pretty rediculous to me, so why should the other priorities act in this
> fashion?
Yes. Absolutely. There must be no conflicts within required. Or
Standard. Or Important. (Within one release, I mean - a potato-Important
package can of course conflict and replace a slink-Important one).
> Even considering this paragraph, it has always been my understanding that
> packages may _not_ conflict with packages of a higher priority. The idea
> that they might be able to do this with the priority Extra (the lowest
> priority there is!) doesn't make any sense to me. Is there some rational
> behind this that I don't get?
Yes. Where else do you put them?
Let us suppose that exim is Standard. I package
exim-with-jules-really-stupid-hack. This cannot be simulataneously
installed with exim (I haven't changed the paths). However, it's only of
interest to people whose network infrastructure is such that every single
subnet has a distinct, prime, number of workstations in (in which
circumstance it has a superbly efficient routing algortihm ;).
So, exim-jules is useless to most people. So I package it in Extra.
However it conflicts with exim. Is this wrong? Makes sense to me. In
fact, that's what I see Extra as meaning. Either unusual, or conflicting
with packages of higher priorities.
>
> If we use Jules interpretation, Conflicts ceases to be a useful tool.
I don't see that it does. Conflicts is a useful tool. (Note that many
conflicts are versioned, in fact, and hence excluded from this reasoning).
Jules
/----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\
| Jelibean aka | jules@jellybean.co.uk | 6 Evelyn Rd |
| Jules aka | jules@debian.org | Richmond, Surrey |
| Julian Bean | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | TW9 2TF *UK* |
+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+
| War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. |
| When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy. |
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