Re: phasing out override files

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

On Mon, May 01, 2000 at 09:10:15PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote:
> * Add a new fourth field to the overrides files. If it is "trusted", the
>   information in the .deb becomes trusted and is used. If it is
>   "overridden", the information in the overrides file continues to take
>   precidence.
> * Mark the 80% that got it right as trusted and the rest as overridden.
> * Whenever an overridden package is uploaded with a correct section
>   and priority, mark it trusted.
> * If the ftp maintainers need to override a value from a package, they
>   simply change its entry in the override files to overridden and edit
>   it as needed. (And file a bug on the package, if it was trusted
>   before, so the maintainer can know why they have overridden it, and
>   correct his package.)

I think something much simpler would work:  Use a special value "-"
for sections and priorities that should be taken from the package
instead of from the override file.  Then do regular scans for values
that can be replaced with "-".  (The "-" is already used in the changes
file format for missing information of this type.)

This requires changing dpkg-gencontrol, and doing it with sections
would take significant work on dinstall because the section is also
the directory name.

Richard Braakman