Mentor: Steve Langasek; supported by Raphaël Hertzog for dpkg maintainer
review and sign-off
Summary: implement support for declarative diversions in dpkg, to obsolete
manual calls to dpkg-divert in maintainer scripts
Required skills:
* C programming
* ability to communicate clearly in written English
Description:
The dpkg package manager allows packages to redirect ("divert") files
belonging to one package to replace them with their own implementation.
This is currently done by invoking a command, dpkg-divert, from package
maintainer scripts, which is fragile and error prone; most references to
dpkg-divert in the maintainer scripts of a typical system today are
attempts to fix up past incorrect uses of dpkg-divert.
The dpkg-divert command should be replaced with a new control file with a
declarative syntax which dpkg will parse and process directly as part of
the package unpack and removal phases, eliminating the problems resulting
from non-atomic handling of diversions.
Any solution to this problem must include documentation on correct use of
the new feature and provide a transition path for packages using the
existing non-declarative method of diverting files.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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