Bug#508644: mass bugfiling (against 8 packages) and/or new package default-mta
On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 09:46:15AM +0100, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote:
>> Given that m-t-a is mentioned explicitly in policy, and that "default-mta"
>> will be a virtual package, I think this should be recorded in policy as well
>> - though if a clear consensus emerges on debian-devel, there's no need to go
>> through the policy process before filing bugs.
> Hmmm. I partially agree, but then we have an unnecessary exception:
> such virtual packages must have only one "provider", or else there
> will be problems (IIRC) on dpkg, apt or ddbuild, if such dependency
> is declared as first dependency [1].
>From the definition of the virtual package in question, it should have only
one provider at a time.
The problems caused by having more than one provider of default-mta are the
same as those caused by depending on mail-transport-agent alone. This is
not an argument against defining a default-mta virtual package, this is an
argument against having stupid bugs in the implementation.
> I would prefer to create a real empty package:
> default-mta (maybe in a source package debian-defaults), which depends
> on exim.
This unavoidably couples Debian's choice of a default MTA for users who
install the new release, to the behavior for users who are upgrading from a
previous release, because users who have such a 'default-mta' package
installed will find their MTA changed on dist-upgrade.
This was already discussed in the thread referenced by Holger.
> [1] policy 7.5 has only a note:
> : If you want to specify which of a set of real packages should be the default to satisfy
> : a particular dependency on a virtual package, you should list the real package as an
> : alternative before the virtual one.
> Probably we should be stricter.
Stricter about what? There are lots of cases where it's useful to have only
one package at a time provide a virtual package, and to have other packages
reference that virtual package on its own (think build-dependencies).
--
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Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
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