Re: Packaging fork

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Dmitry Bogatov <KAction@gnu.org> writes:

> I am interested in packaging [mmh](<http://marmaro.de/prog/mmh) email
> client, which is fork of nmh. Issue is that they are both provides ~20
> binaries, and renaming them is not option (it is like one day you
> discover, that `ls` is now named `new-ls').

If the interfaces of those commands are the same – if ‘/usr/bin/nmh’ and
‘/usr/bin/mmh’ both accept the same command-line parameters and produce
pretty much the same behaviour – Debian's solution for this is the
“alternatives” system.

    When several packages all provide different versions of the same
    program or file it is useful to have the system select a default,
    but to allow the system administrator to change it and have their
    decisions respected.

    <URL:https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-pkg-alternatives.html>

-- 
 \        “Telling pious lies to trusting children is a form of abuse, |
  `\                    plain and simple.” —Daniel Dennett, 2010-01-12 |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney