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Re: What Debian-qa policy for sorting packages?



Hello,

On Sun, Jan 23, 2000 at 02:53:23PM +0200, arto.astala@nokia.com wrote:
[..]
I have sent a bug against ftp.debian.org asking for the remove of
playmidi, for all the reasons explained.
> 
> Now a question:
> 
>   Is there a clean way (other than release notes) to
>   direct the user of playmidi to installing and using
>   timidity?
> 
> I know all sorts of packaging trickery can be used to
> replace a package with another, but this leaves two points
> open: informing the user and letting user remove the old
> package.
> 
> Also a note:
>   If we remove playmidi from woody could we at least
>   update the description in potato to say it is going
>   to be removed, please use timidity instead.
[..]

I have made a suggestion for this (Cf "dpkg | dselect| apt : Debian-qa 
fields planned ?" thread).

The idea was to have another file, beyond Packages.gz, namely : Stake.gz
(Stake : Security Team and quality-Assurance Keep or Exclude file), that
would not be cache by apt, and with only headers, something like that :

Package: playmidi
Section: withdrawned
Security: quiet | remove /* you can KEEP; or you're strongly encourage
                            to REMOVE it for security reasons */
Replacements: timidity [| <package>
Description: <explanations>

Hamish Moffat has suggested that something could be implemented without
all these new fields, but by the use of Conflicts.

Cheers,
-- 
Thierry LARONDE
thierry.laronde@polynum.com
website : http://www.polynum.com


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