Re: Self-conflicts and self-depends

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

Fabio Tranchitella <kobold@debian.org> writes:

> Il giorno mar, 25/07/2006 alle 18.10 -0700, Russ Allbery ha scritto:
>> So, are people sure this is not useful even if the package name doubles as
>> a virtual package?  It seems to me like it would be.  Or are people just
>> arguing that that case will never occur?
>
> Conflicts on virtual packages assure that two real packages providing
> the virtual one can't be installed togheter, so let's say:
>
> A: provides D; conflicts D
> B: provides D; conflicts D
>
> It is not possible to install both pkg A and pkg B because both provide
> pkg D and the other package conflicts with it. If we replace D with A,
> and remove the self-conflicts/self-provides, the situation would be:
>
> A: nothing;
> B: provides A; conflicts A
>
> ... which produces the same result, because you can't install both A and
> B because B conflicts with (the real package) A.
>
> For me, self-conflicts make no sense in every situation.

Say your "A" package gets renamed to (or is named) "D". "D" then still
has to conflict "D" so "B" can't be installed in
parallel. exim4-config is an example of such a case.

MfG
        Goswin