Re: Again: Bug#503367: plink: file conflict with putty-tools
Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009, Steffen Moeller wrote:
>
>> we should ask the technical committee to rule over it. And maybe this
>> needs some voting in the end.
>
> Who is this *we*? Do you volunteer?
:) no, since I personally see no preferable alternative to the current conflicting state.
> IMHO plink should be renamed because it is way less popular than the
> putty tool. So we will loose this voting anyway and there is much effort
> for an foreseable outcome. IMHO the solution I described in README.Debian
> is reasonable for plink users even with existing scripts.
Morten's suggestion of a rename to purcell_plink (or plink_purcell) seems
reasonable to me. snplink I find strange and as it was mentioned in the initial thread,
there an earlier program with that name.
>> I personally think that we should not rename it. And putty's plink
>> should not be renamed
>> either. The two are in a technical conflict, though with little
>> practical consequences. To
>> me, this situation is preferable over the renaning of the binary of
>> either.
>
> This is a worse solution than a rename.
In your view, I know.
>> Please keep in mind that we don't need to package everything.
>> (sn)plink can just be
>> removed from the archive. Or could it move to non-free si it does
>> not adhere to
>> Debian's principles? I need to reread the policy here.
>
> Moving to non-free will not solve the problem and is just wrong
> (because it is actually not non-free). Trying to solve a problem
> by pretending wrong facts is a no go.
I know what you mean.
> I'd strongly recommend to settle (together with upstream) for
> a reasonable alternative name (I don't care whether it is
> snplink, Plink, PLINK or something else) but we should find
> a reasonable decision in a short time frame (to not spend to
> power into an issue which does not bring anybody foreward).
If _I_ was upstream, with a program that has such a strong name in the community, I would
not change it lightheartedly. PLINK would certainly remain PLINK, the only chance I'd see
is that upstream leaves the name PLINK for its software and renames the binary alone and
then towards something that is very similar to the old one, maybe p_link or so. But this
should possibly be synced with a general API overhaul or so.
The conflict in my view is a problem of Debian or of UNIX in general, not of either of the
two plinks. We should have namespaces of some sort and not everything in one directory.
Best,
Steffen
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