Future of Debian package management

[csj <csj@mindgate.net>]

A little question for the kind developers subscribed to this (ab)user
list. What comes after apt and dselect? Which next-generation package
manager will be included in the next Debian release? Aptitude, deity or
something else?

I'm worried that a package manager that can't deal with my local package
archive will win out. Particularly, I have some issues with deity, which
refuses to install any files from my local archive, failing with errors
like:

Package manager (dpkg) failed: 

  * Internal Error, Pathname to install is not absolute
'ktux_4%3a3.0.2-1_i386.deb'

The file is actually "ktux_3.0.2-1_i386.deb", which aptitude (and apt)
happily installs. I don't know where deity is getting those extra
characters.