Re: Updating the policy for conflicting binaries names ? [was: Re: Re: New package netgen-lvs with binary /usr/bin/netgen - already taken]

[Paride Legovini <pl@ninthfloor.org>]

Russ Allbery wrote on 09/09/2018:
> Oh, hm, yes, I rather like this idea too, particularly combined with
> putting those symlink packages in their own namespace (and maybe their > own section).

Totally makes sense.

> Maybe this is overkill for the relatively small number of these packages
> we run into, but it provides some basis for writing more interesting
> tools.
In my not-so-long life as a Debian package maintainer I encountered the
issue several times, specifically with:

 * [ITP] fd-find: https://github.com/sharkdp/fd
   (/usr/bin/fd clashes with package fdclone)

 * [ITP] bat: https://github.com/sharkdp/bat
   (/usr/bin/bat clashes with bareos-bat)

 * imv: /usr/bin clashes with renameutils.
   I renamed the binary and manpage to 'imvr'

 * [dropped ITP] spm: https://notabug.org/kl3/spm
   /usr/bin/spm clashes with salt-common
   I ended up dropping the ITP for spm for several reasons.

Sure the number of packages with a binary file clash problem is
relatively small, but I don't think the issue can be ignored.

Paride