Hi! On 04/09/2012 10:21, Michael Hall wrote: > On 09/04/2012 09:39 AM, Scott Kitterman wrote: >> The problem isn't just with file conflicts with current packages, it's that >> these packages will now start using up distro namespace. If some app >> developer package ships the file /usr/games/bird-game, even though there's >> no >> current conflict, there is a package sync'ed from Debian that also ships >> /usr/games/bird-game then there's a conflict we have to resolve. In /opt in >> a >> proper vendor namespace this can never happen. > > If bird-game already exists in Extras, and then a different package is > allowed into backports that will install files into the same location, > then yes there is a possibility for a conflict. But I assume part of > the backports approval process already checks for conflicts, as they may > exist with another package in the stable release already, so that > process could easily be extended to include Extras packages as well.
In extras, all the package files (with a few exceptions like the debian changelog, copyright files, etc) gets installed under /opt. There are some exceptions for things like unity lenses and .desktop entries, but those are prefixed with "extras-" so that they are somewhat namespaced. Packages in backports aren't allowed to install under /opt, so the chance of a collision is very rare. It's possible for someone to have collision if they happen to have the same unity lens or desktop entry that happens to start with "extras-", but at least that's something fairly unlikely and easy to check, maybe something that should be considered suggesting to Debian policy and added to lintian. Having two packages with colliding file names doesn't seem like it will be a big problem. From what I can tell it seems like it's more likely that a package would be introduced in Debian or Ubuntu at some point that is also in extras. So far, many of the apps in extras have *extremely* generic names. While reviewing apps for the app showdown competition, I checked whether these packages existed in Debian/Ubuntu first before +1'ing them and was surprised to see that none of these names have been used before. IMHO it would be reasonable to prefix something to extras packages to avoid a conflict, perhaps also have some policy updates that prohibits a package name starting with "extras-" (or whatever the prefix would be) in the archives. -Jonathan -- ubuntu-devel mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
