Proposal to avoid executable naming conflicts (was: Bug#753704: ITP: amap -- Next-generation scanning tool for pentesters)

[Eric Cooper <ecc@cmu.edu>]

Since Debian package names must already be unique, we ought to be able
to leverage that to avoid having to fight over which package gets to
claim which binary name.

What about making it into a user's install-time decision,
rather than a developer's packaging-time decision?

As a proof of concept, I copied each package's binaries on my machine
into /opt/<package>/bin/.  Then I union-mounted all these /opt/*/bin
directories into a single /ubin (for "unified /bin"), and set my PATH
to just that.  I've been using it (lightly) for a couple of days
without problems.

I just union-mounted them in alphabetical order, but in the case of
conflicts it would be easy to use a site-specific prioritization,
analagous to mailcap.order, to control the shadowing.

My apologies if this has already been proposed and rejected before.

Cheers,
Eric

-- 
Eric Cooper             e c c @ c m u . e d u