Re: "libwww-curl-perl"
On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, Matthew Palmer wrote:
(reminder: still not subscribed, cc me if you want me to read your reply)
This is my last reply in this matter. I have decided to avoid this kind of
politics, especially in a particular distribution and its packages. I will
from this moment on leave you to decide how to act on this. You know my
stand-point and you can find all the necessary details on all the discussed
packages on the curl site and elsewhere.
> > 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.
I'm sorry, but isn't that just a bit stupid? The "WWW::" part in the perl
name doesn't make the package depend or use libwww. It says the package is in
the WWW category.
I think that makes sense.
> 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.
Nah, the name issue in the CPAN community is a separate issue and I can't see
why you need to use or get infected by their choices if they don't fit you.
> 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?
A) I did not name the perl package. I am but the libcurl maintainer, not the
perl binding maintainer and AFAIK the perl package got its name because of
CPAN name regulations. Let's keep the disussion about the Debian package
name here, blaming someone else seems a bit counter productive.
B) The name "WWW::Curl" doesn't mislead any users into believing it uses or
depends on the libwww library. 'WWW' is not a term that implies 'libwww'.
You know that. The misleading argument is my main one.
C) I would personally rather see the perl name to be 'WWW::libcurl', but
again I didn't set any of those names and no one asked me what I think. I
don't think of this as a problem though.
> > 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.
Then your naming scheme is truly screwed up. No part in any package name that
origins from libcurl or a libcurl binding mentions 'libwww' to the extent of
my knowledge. I can of course not speak for others and lots of things might
happen that I'm not aware of, but in this case, the names provided by the
upstream authors (I author libcurl, Cris Bailiff author the WWW::Curl
binding) are:
A) libcurl - the library
B) WWW::Curl - the perl binding for libcurl
Now, what of these names imply that we depend or use any part of libwww?
The 'WWW' part of the 'WWW::Curl' package is a category for the perl package.
It does not enforce dependency on any particular package.
That conclusion seems to be done by the Debian package name system, and if
that is correct, it is just a plain bad decision.
> I notice that the libwww-curl-perl package contains three modules,
[snip]
That might be the case, I'm not arguing about the contents, the functionality
or what the package actually does. I'm only talking about the name of the
main package here.
libwww is a separate project, why would a binding made for libcurl use their
name?
> Apart from perhaps going with libperl-www-curl, I don't see how it could be
> improved.
Well if you ask me, "libperl-www-curl" would be a lot better than the current
one. But then, why is the perl binding for libwww named libwww-perl? Why
aren't both bindings named in a similar fashion? Can't you see the
similarities?
> Remember that the name comes directly from your choice of module name -
> WWW::Curl.
No, it doesn't. No part of that name says libwww. It says WWW. They are not
interchangable at will.
> All we do is take that name, as logical or illogical as it may be.
No you don't. I wish you did.
--
Daniel Stenberg -- curl: been grokking URLs since 1998
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