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Conflict over /usr/bin/dune



Hi,

It has been brought to my attention that both packages "whitedune" and
"dune" provide the binary "/usr/bin/dune" (#916468).

The situation falls directly under section 10.1 of the Policy:

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s-binaries

> Two different packages must not install programs with different
> functionality but with the same filenames.

The solution proposed by the policy is to rename one or both of the
packages, after a discussion here:

> [...] try to find a consensus about which program will have to be
> renamed. If a consensus cannot be reached, both programs must be
> renamed.

The "dune" package (of which I am the maintainer) is a popular build
system for OCaml projects. It is pretty recent, has strong upstream
support, and more and more projects are switching to it, which is a
reason to have it in Debian.

It was previously named jbuilder, but has been renamed due to a conflict
with another software. Upstream is reluctant to rename it again.

The "whitedune" package is a graphical VRML97/X3D viewer, editor, 3D
modeller and animation tool. It has existed in Debian since 2007 and its
last upload to Debian (an NMU) dates back to March 2016. The version in
Debian is 0.30.10 while the last upstream version [1] seems to be
0.99pl1234. The source tarball seems to date back to December 2018, so
the upstream project seems well alive. In the "whitedune" package,
"/usr/bin/dune" is a symbolic link to "whitedune".

[1] http://wdune.ourproject.org/

Due to its nature, the build system (a command line tool) is more likely
(IMHO) to be invoked as "dune" by third-parties than the desktop
application. Moreover, the existence of the symlink suggests that the
preferred way to call the application is through "whitedune" (and a menu
entry exists). Therefore, I propose that the "whitedune" package drops
the "/usr/bin/dune" symlink altogether.


Cheers,

-- 
Stéphane


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