Hi there! On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:58:47 +0200, Michael Gilbert wrote: > severity 596862 minor
I do not agree with this severity, but it is your package, thus your
choice.
> On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:15:19 +0200 Luca Capello wrote:
>> A lenny user who installed the xpdf-reader package and *not* the old
>> xpdf metapackage will still have the xpdf-common package installed, even
>> after the upgrade to the new (and real) xpdf package.
>
> why is this a problem? "apt-get autoremove", which is suggested in
> apt's output will take care of removing it.
Read below.
>> Second, the xpdf-common package is left installed and it is not
>> automatically removed, which means that the other configuration files in
>> /etc/xpdf (xpdfrc-arabic, xpdfrc-cyrillic, xpdfrc-greek, xpdfrc-hebrew,
>> xpdfrc-latin2, xpdfrc-thai and xpdfrc-turkish) are left installed as
>> well, with the user noticing nothing about that.
>
> the presence of these files presents no problems that i'm aware of.
Still, there is a discrepancy between xpdf versions: you have something
From version 3.02-2 and something from version 3.02-10. And this is all
but a clean situation.
>> The correct solution is to also provide a transitional xpdf-common
>> package, please do that.
>
> i don't really see the problem. what's the difference between a
> transitional package that's in the autoremove list vs. the old package
> in the autoremove list? both get taken care of with apt's autoremove
> feature.
I think this abuses apt's autoremove feature (as well as dpkg's
Replaces: one).
Moreover, there is a big difference between a *transitional* empty
package and the old one: the latter is yet another Debian package, the
former identifies a specific action, i.e. the fact that the xpdf sources
have been re-organized and now there is no need for separate
-common/-reader packages. This is exactly why we have transitional
packages, because users *must* now if a package installed on their
system is still a valid one or not (and this is not the case for the
current situation).
BTW, I recall that there were some notes about transitional packages in
Debian Policy, like the fact that they must survive one release
(i.e. real xpdf-reader package in lenny, transitional xpdf-reader
package in squeeze, no more xpdf-reader package in squeeze+1), but
it seems I could not find anymore this information.
Anyway, again, it is your package and, frankly speaking, I do not care
so much about that: I explained my point (which thinks about the user
and not about the fact that we have yet another package installed or
not) and that is all, you are the maintainer, thus you have full action
on your package. Feel free to deal with this bug as you wish, but
please tag it wontfix if you do not re-add the transitional package.
Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca
PS, FYI, I was personally involved with the transition of one of the
packages I maintained, so I know what I am talking about...
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