Barry Warsaw <ba...@debian.org> writes: > You might be aware that the upstream pep8 package has been renamed to > pycodestyle. Both the command line and imports have changed, although > not in a backward compatible way unfortunately[1].
Ah, Python. We love you, but please grow a proper API versioning system :-/ > There's a new upstream flake8 which I'm preparing in git-dpm, but it > will be blocked until we decide what to do about the Debian pep8 > package. (I hope the upstream ‘flake8’ now defaults to conforming with PEP 8, instead of having default checks that contradict it.) > I think we eventually want to rename Source:pep8 to > Source:pycodestyle, as well as Package:pep8, Package:python-pep8, and > Package:python3-pep8. I suppose we could at least keep the source > package name unchanged and transition to the new binary package names. My understanding is that renaming a source package is rather more disruptive than renaming a binary package, is that right? If so, I would recommend: * Go ahead and transition the binary package names with the usual mechanisms <URL:https://wiki.debian.org/PackageTransition>: * Keep the old names as a transition package until after Debian Stretch is released. * Have the new binary packages declare Replaces and Conflicts relationships with the appropriate version specification of the old names. * Maybe even schedule the transition with the release team <URL:https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ReleaseTeam/Transitions>, to allow co-ordination of dependent packages. * Since you've determined the command-line interfaces are not compatible, the new commands should not be alternatives for the old. * As a separate matter, figure out how best to rename the source package to better correspond with the new name upstream. This could take an arbitrarily long time; IMO while it is desirable to rename the source package, there's no tearing need yet. -- \ “Come on, if your religion is so vulnerable that a little bit | `\ of disrespect is going to bring it down, it's not worth | _o__) believing in, frankly.” —Terry Gilliam, 2005-01-18 | Ben Finney