Re: shouldn't I use update-alternatives for this?
Scripsit Sebastian Kuzminsky <seb@highlab.com>
> Qingning Huo <qingningh@lanware.co.uk> wrote:
>> I suggest dpkg-divert /usr/bin/git, and install a shell script as
>> /usr/bin/git, which will invoke either program depending on a certain
>> environment variable[1] or a configuration file.
> Does this solution seem acceptable to everyone?
No it doesn't. It has the same basic trouble as using alternatives.
The fact that it uses a granularity of accounts rather than a
granularity of machines for choosing between one program and the
other does not change the property that it requires such a spurious
choice to be made.
The choice is spurious because there is (as I understand it) nothing
inherent in the two pieces of software that makes it nonsensical for
someone to want to use both of them regularly. For this, each of them
needs to have a unique name.
Even if nobody ever wanted to use both, a solution that silently pulls
the carpet from under users that are used to git #1 just because the
sysadmin installs git #2 *and does not uninstall anything*, is not
desirable at all.
If the maintainers of the two packages cannot resolve the question of
name priority amicably, the matter will have to be referred to the
Technical Committee. There can be no circumventing this.
--
Henning Makholm "Jeg mener, at der eksisterer et hemmeligt
selskab med forgreninger i hele verden, som
arbejder i det skjulte for at udsprede det rygte at
der eksisterer en verdensomspændende sammensværgelse."
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