Re: Virtual packages (was Re: Bug#64006:)
On 14-May-00, 13:56 (CDT), Chris Waters <xtifr@dsp.net> wrote:
> Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk> writes:
>
> > But a package which Recommends: www-browser needs no standard
> > interface whatsoever, for example.
>
> I believe they all fit this template:
>
> command-line: <package-specific-program-name> <url>
>
But a lot of the packages that reference "www-browser" don't even
require this much of an "API", they only require that the package
supplying "www-browser" be able to view HTML. In other words, they never
activate the browser, they just recommend that you use a browser to view
output or docs or some such.
That said, I don't think it's generally unreasonable for us to specify
exactly what we mean when define a virtual package. Each package
might have different levels of detail in the specification.
As far as virtual-packages vs alternatives go, the first is concept
used deal with functional relationships in the packaging system, while
the latter is a mechanism used to deal with duplicate file system
entries. We need to be very careful about treating them as equivalents.
Steve
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