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Bug#753608: marked as done (Clarify use of conflicts, clarify what constitutes abuse of the relation)



Your message dated Thu, 3 Jul 2014 13:26:28 -0400
with message-id <20140703172628.GA16501@helios.pault.ag>
and subject line Re: Bug#753608: Clarify use of conflicts, clarify what constitutes abuse of the relation
has caused the Debian Bug report #753608,
regarding Clarify use of conflicts, clarify what constitutes abuse of the relation
to be marked as done.

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753608: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=753608
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--- Begin Message ---
Package: debian-policy
Severity: important
thanks

Hey Policy,

I'd like to clarify the purpose of the Conflicts relation, as written in
section 7.2 and 7.4.

Recently a package (systemd-must-die) was uploaded to NEW. This package
creates a Conflicts relation with systemd packages, and tries to prevent
their install[1].

I see this as an abuse of the Conflicts relation, and *not* a valid
reason to use it. In my opinion, this is a needless relation, and not why
Conflicts exists.


I'd really like a clarification on the point to see if my reading is
correct, and secondly, I'd really like to see policy adjusted to
explicitly forbid or allow this use in the examples (cosmetics, really).


Thanks for your work,
  Paul


[1]: really it'll just cause apt to remove the systemd-blocking-package.

-- 
 .''`.  Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org>  |   Proud Debian Developer
: :'  : 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352  D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87
`. `'`  http://people.debian.org/~paultag
 `-     http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt

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--- Begin Message ---
OK. I'm closing this bug for now. Enough people think this isn't the
right place to define it, and I think that seems fair.

On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 10:19:39AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> The concern I have with raising this issue in the Policy context is that
> Policy is not really keeping up even with the uncontroversial changes to
> Debian packaging standards, and we do not have a process that works well
> for highly controversial topics.
> 
> The nature of these packages has been the topic of very hot flamewars on
> debian-devel already, and I find it very unlikely that we'd be able to
> reach any consensus via the Policy process on their merits.
> 
> I think that, if you want to raise formal objections to this package
> approach, it would need to go to the Technical Committee instead.

Aye. I'm very unlikely to raise the issue there. I'll just end this here
and let nature take it's course. I have enough faith in the folks
involved to arrive at a sane solution.

I was just trying to define a grey area that I thought was one shade of
grey, but turns out to be a completely different shade. Such is life.

> That said, the other thing I would say is that sometimes it's worth
> bending rules or accepting things that feel like a misuse of a facility if
> it defuses social tension.  It's more important that we all work together
> on Debian than that we follow any specific packaging rule.  I think part
> of the debate over these packages is precisely whether they're divisive or
> defusing, but given that there seems to be some good faith progress
> towards things like changing the name of the package, I'm not sure this is
> something on which it's worth pushing all that hard.
> 
> The ftp-masters can, and should, arrive at their own conclusions using
> their own process for NEW acceptance, and I'm happy to let them follow
> whatever process they choose.  But more broadly in the project I think
> it's worth thinking about whether this is a place where time will heal
> wounds.  We're *very* early in the process of adopting systemd, and I
> think people's discomfort will decrease with time.
> 
> -- 
> Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
> 

-- 
 .''`.  Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org>  |   Proud Debian Developer
: :'  : 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352  D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87
`. `'`  http://people.debian.org/~paultag
 `-     http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt

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