Bug#758234: Bug#759260: [PATCH] Remove priority "extra", make all corresponding packages priority "optional"
Hi,
Russ Allbery:
> > Let's assume that I have a large multiuser Debian system. I don't want
> > to be bothered by people requesting this or that package all the time,
> > so I simply install everything that's of priority <extra.
>
> Has anyone actually done this in the last five years? I'm extremely
> dubious this is a useful thing to do.
>
I actually did this at one time, for a subset of sections.
Until it broke too often.
(At the time, filing bugs about that would likely have started yet another
fight against windmills. So I didn't.)
> > Or, alternately, I allow "apt-get install --assume-yes" of these
> > packages by $COMMON_USER, as Policy states that there shall be no
> > conflicts.
>
> Do you actually do this? Is optional actually conflict-free? I'm pretty
> sure it isn't.
>
No, it's not. But I'd like it to be.
However, if a consensus should emerge that it's too much hassle to file
bugs against 100 packages (and then have at least half of their maintainers
show up in -devel for the first time in $FOREVER, and try to argue that
$OTHER_PACKAGE should be in Extra instead, because of $AD_HOC_REASON)
then I'd grudgingly be OK with abolishing Optional.
--
-- Matthias Urlichs
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