Re: Effect of Replaces in coexisting packages

[Frank Küster <frank@kuesterei.ch>]

Ralf Stubner <ralf.stubner@physik.uni-erlangen.de> wrote:

> Frank Küster wrote:
>> Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> wrote:
>> 
>>> My suggestion would be to not replace files but to divert them. That
>>> is the only way for a file to be in 2 packages that can coexist.
>>> Replaces is realy only working right for moving a file from a to b.
>> 
>> Ralf, I guess you've noticed that. 
>
> Yes, but I haven't yet put more thought into this.
>
>> Let me just add that I don't like
>> diversions;  some of the reasons are in bugs #272341 and #269235.  It
>> boils down to the problem that 
>> 
>> - the dvipdfm package diverted a file from tetex-bin
>> 
>> - we didn't know about this when we added Replaces/Provides: dvipdfm
>> 
>> - We have no way to get to know this in a systematic way - you have to
>>   check and understand the maintainer scripts of the package you
>>   Replace, or force yourself to check /var/lib/dpkg/diversions every
>>   time you have "file interactions" with an other package.  Or you learn
>>   it the hard way by getting bug reports like the above - but then it's
>>   too late.
>
> That sounds indeed ugly. 

It is not so ugly as long as

- everybody involved talks to each other

and

- the information is properly transferred to people who take over the
  work later.  

I guess this the latter is the main problem.

> I could imagine that the best solution would be
> to use Replaces for what it is meant, ie, remove the metrics from
> texlive-fontsrecommended/texlive-fontsextra and have a versioned
> Replaces and Conflicts in the font package in question. That should
> work, right? 

Yes, I think that's the best solution.  It would mean a deviation of the
Debian TeX-live packages from upstream, but I don't think this is a
problem here (Norbert?)

> The TeX Live package could then Suggest the font package.

If it is in contrib or non-free, yes.

> I have no idea, though, why Norbert posted his 'don't use Replaces' message.

Me neither.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer