Re: Status of pythondialog in Debian

[Florent Rougon <f.rougon@free.fr>]

Tristan Seligmann <mithrandi@mithrandi.net> wrote:

> Replaces: would not be appropriate or necessary since none of the
> files are overlapping; this is only necessary when two packages
> install files to the same location, and the one package must be
> installed over the other.
>
> Conflicts: would not be appropriate either, because both packages will
> work just fine when coinstalled, as you mention.

Yes, I know the technical conditions that justify Conflicts and
Replaces, I only proposed them as a means to get users' package managers
to automatically propose the upgrade from python-dialog to
python3-dialog...

> It is indeed possible for a removed package ("obsolete package", as
> aptitude etc. call it) to stay on user systems forever, unless the
> user takes some action, but I think the packaging tools and
> documentation provide the necessary tools for users to address this.

[...]

> I
> expect they can just continue to use it, whereas if it is not being
> used then it doesn't really cause any harm by being installed on their
> system.

That is true, I also use aptitude and this feature works well. The main
downside to leaving obsolete packages is when they have security
problems, since they never get fixed in such a case. I am not aware of
any such problem for pythondialog, though, so I suppose we can live with
the current situation.

Thanks

-- 
Florent