Bug#627213: not happy with these virtual packages at all
I do not think that these virtual packages work for web apps. I took
over two packages (cf. #614598 and #627962) that declared a dependency
on httpd, when both clearly required httpd-cgi. I rebelled and changed
the dependency to apache2.
Also as someone has pointed out already, just because these packages
could work with any CGI-capable webserver, does not mean that they will
out of the box. That would require integration work which I do not have
time to do.
I would propose the following change to web apps policy:
1.) A web app should be split into a core package and a number
webserver-specific packages that depend on it. One of those packages
would have Provides clause for backwards compatibility and need be the
only package actively maintained by the developer.
2.) The webserver-specific packages would be maintained in a manner
reminiscent of the language translation teams. They would provide
patches to the maintainer to keep the other webserver packages uptodate.
This would initially be done informally via BTS though it should be
possible to produce semi-automatic tools to translate from the
configuration of one webserver to another.
3.) The use of virtual packages to describe web servers should be phased
out.
--
Nicholas Bamber | http://www.periapt.co.uk/
PGP key 3BFFE73C from pgp.mit.edu
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