Re: more overly-generic package names from gnustep
On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 06:10:25AM -0800, Number Six wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 01:54:34PM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> > No, it won't clobber the symlink. dpkg will crash out and refuse to
> > install his package.
>
> Which is exactly what would happen if his app was named "tupim." And we
> would file a bug against his generic packag pim to start using the
> /etc/alternatives/pim as well, because *he* is at fault for insisting on
> the generic name, and I am trying to coexist.
>
> If *I* shouldn't be insisting a generic name than neither should he.
> If the bug is not resolved / won't be fixed, I mark my package as
> Conflicts: JerksPIM and life moves on.
>
> Since it's a mere accident that people think "pim" is generic and
> "tupim" is not, writing some sort of coexistence policy in cases where
> two or more people wish to use a name and requiring both to also use an
> alternate name as well seems the only fair thing.
We already have one of those: see policy 10.1. I think using this
symlink in the way you originally proposed is not much different from
claiming the name in the first place. Creating the symlink in the
postinst when it doesn't exist is failure-prone, unpredictable, and
makes it harder for the file conflict to be automatically detected.
I don't object to using alternatives, though (which I've just noticed
you said you were going to start doing); that makes it reasonable.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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