Re: Outrageous Maintainer

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> writes:

> On Sat, Apr 30, 2005 at 10:04:35PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> A Replaces without a Conflicts is I think always wrong.
>
> No, absolutely not. See policy, section 7.5, for details -- especially
> section 7.5.1.

Still leaves the following problem:

bar replaces some of foo's files.

apt-get install foo
apt-get install bar
apt-get remove bar

Now foo is left with files missing and bar is to blame. Doesn't that
make bar RC buggy?

OR

apt-get install bar
apt-get install foo # error, tries to overwrite files of bar

Now foo is uninstallable. Again a bug.


The only way bth problems can be avoided is when foo depends on bar,
bar depends on foo, foo replaces bar and bar replaces foo. Do we want
such cyclic depends and replaces?


I still think that a lone Replaces is always wrong. Not forbidden by
policy but it causes bugs.

Maybe 7.5.1 should be retitled to "Moving a file from one package to
another" and extended to include a versioned conflict with the old
package.

MfG
        Goswin