On Mon, 9 Sep 1996, Ian Jackson wrote: > When I uploaded debiandoc-sgml 1.0.5 the .changes file below was > included. As you can see it said `Distribution: unstable'. However, > I see that the package has not been installed into unstable but into > project/experimental. It should be moved, and steps should be taken > to stop the problem from recurring.
I will move debiandoc-sgml, but dinstall's behavior was correct. The override files instructed dinstall to put debiandoc-sgml into experimental, overriding what was in the .changes file. This problem will recur whenever a package moves from one section or distribution to another. dinstall cannot handle this case because it doesn't know where to look for the older version to unlink it. Instead it assumes that the .changes file listed incorrect sections and distributions (a fairly frequent occurrence actually), and installs the package into the old location. Since package movements are much more rare than .changes files with incorrect locations, dinstall's assumption is the right one. dinstall could, alternatively, require human intervention in this case. But it was written to run as automatically as possible. It will make a recoverable error, which is usually the right thing to do, rather than do nothing at all. A third alternative is to turn the `Override file lists section as ... overriding your choice of ...' message into an error, so the package would get rejected. But this is illogical as it would require MORE intervention: maintainers would be forced to reupload new .changes files and the distribution maintainer would still have to edit the override file. So I would like to close this bug, as it's not a bug. Of couse, you may be able to suggest a fourth alternative which is better. Guy PS - I can't seem to log in to master right now, but I'll move debiandoc-sgml when I can.
