Re: "libwww-curl-perl"
On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, Daniel Stenberg wrote:
> Hello debian-policy, I am not a subscriber, but I have some questions for
> you. Please CC me if you care to reply and want me to read it. I am the
> maintainer and main author of libcurl and I feel bad about this issue.
Done.
> ONE of the packages (only present in unstable) has NOTHING to do with libwww,
> and it is named libwww-curl-perl. Why?
It's because the Perl module is named WWW::Curl. Now, doing the whole
path-walking thing, I would presume that WWW::Curl would be some subclassing
from WWW for Curl. Now, the decision to name the module WWW::Curl wasn't
made by Debian.
I'm curious as to how exactly you believe that naming our package
libwww-curl-perl is going to confuse our users, but your naming the module
WWW::Curl isn't?
> The perl binding package for libwww is named 'libwww-perl'. Now, libcurl has
> many similarities to what libwww offers. So why isn't the perl package for
> libcurl named in the same fashion? It would make the package named
> 'libcurl-perl' and nothing else.
Debian chooses it's Perl package names based on the name of the module
provided by upstream (AKA you). If you would like your packages named
libcurl-perl, then provide a module named Curl.
> This current way of naming the package is confusing users, is denies libcurl
> users to find it using the more sensible search for 'libcurl'[2] (the former
> name of this package was "libcurl-easy-perl" which made a lot more sense) and
> it implies to users that the binding somehow depends, uses or relies on
> libwww, which it doesn't.
I notice that the libwww-curl-perl package contains three modules,
WWW::Curl, WWW::Curl::Easy and Curl::Easy. You'll have to take it up with
the Debian maintainer as to why he chose to change the name, but it would
always be possible to package each of the modules as separate packages.
You'll need to talk the maintainer into it, though.
> If this naming is made following the naming guidelines (which I admittedly
> haven't read), then I suggest that the guidelines are modified. If this
> package name is not forced to be like this by any guideline, then I suggest
> that the package name is changed to reflect its true identity.
Apart from perhaps going with libperl-www-curl, I don't see how it could be
improved. Remember that the name comes directly from your choice of module
name - WWW::Curl. All we do is take that name, as logical or illogical as
it may be.
Now, there are three modules in the package, so the maintainer could have
picked any of them. Considering that two of the three modules start with
WWW::Curl, I think the maintainer made a logical choice.
--
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#include <disclaimer.h>
Matthew Palmer, Geek In Residence
http://ieee.uow.edu.au/~mjp16
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