Re: Node.js and it's future in debian
On Thu, 03 May 2012, Patrick Ouellette wrote:
> With all due respect, you can make the same argument for the Node.js
> package to do this.
Yes, but it would not be a transitional backward-compatibility symlink. It
would be a symlink that would have to remain forever and that is required
even for new installs.
As many have argued, the usage patterns of both programs are different
and it will be generally less disruptive to transition ham radio node
users than to require all node.js users to setup the symlink if they want
to be able to use the official shebang line (or the code that someone
else developed for them on a non-Debian system, etc.).
> You also don't address the issue of a user who installs both packages
> and now gets varying behavior depending on their $PATH - a result not
> of a local administrator's action, but of the Debian package's actions.
If node gets renamed to ax25-node, the conflict will disappear, no?
In any case, once the conflict has been resolved at the package level (for
new installations), I believe that nodejs's "preinst install" script could
check if there's a /usr/sbin/node which is in conflict and refuse to
install until the administrator has cleaned up the situation (the error
message could point to /usr/share/doc/node/README.Debian for instructions
on how to do this while ensuring that nothing breaks).
This check logically gives priority to the current node package since it
was there before.
In the unlikely case where both packages were already present in the past,
then it should just print out a fat warning and not fail.
HTH.
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer
Pre-order a copy of the Debian Administrator's Handbook and help
liberate it: http://debian-handbook.info/liberation/
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