Re: The 'git' Debian package in squeeze

[Marvin Renich <mrvn@renich.org>]

* Gerrit Pape <pape@smarden.org> [090917 05:18]:
> Hi,
> 
> thanks to Ian Beckwith, the GNU Interactive Tools package 'git' has been
> renamed to 'gnuit' in lenny.  In lenny 'git' is a transitional package
> that depends on gnuit, in squeeze and sid there's no 'git' package
> anymore.
> 
> I'm about to provide a new git binary package from the git-core (the
> distributed revision control system) source, so that 'apt-get install
> git' installs the git content tracker in squeeze.  For people upgrading
> from lenny with git (from gnuit) installed, this means the new git (from
> git-core) package will be installed even if git-core wasn't installed
> before.  I don't think it's that bad, should it be documented in
> NEWS.Debian in the new git package nevertheless?
> 
> Thanks, Gerrit.

IANADD, but as a user I think you should wait one release before reusing
an old package name for a different package.

Let me say that this specific case does not affect me; I already use
git-core, so there would be no issue for me with an upgrade changing
packages.

But, if I were a gnuit user and not a git-core user, I would find it
annoying (and possibly confusing) when upgrading from lenny to squeeze
to have a new package added that I didn't want and that is completely
unrelated to anything I had already installed simply because a more
popular package wanted to take over the name of a different package that
I was using.

There is also the package version issue.  If the new git (from git-core)
keeps the epoch, then there won't be an issue, as the old git (gnuit)
did not have an epoch.  But in the general case, thought should be given
to any effects of the version numbers of the defunct package compared
with the version of the new, unrelated package with the same name.

...Marvin