On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 09:46:15AM +0100, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote: >> Given that m-t-a is mentioned explicitly in policy, and that "default-mta" >> will be a virtual package, I think this should be recorded in policy as well >> - though if a clear consensus emerges on debian-devel, there's no need to go >> through the policy process before filing bugs.
> Hmmm. I partially agree, but then we have an unnecessary exception: > such virtual packages must have only one "provider", or else there > will be problems (IIRC) on dpkg, apt or ddbuild, if such dependency > is declared as first dependency [1]. >From the definition of the virtual package in question, it should have only one provider at a time. The problems caused by having more than one provider of default-mta are the same as those caused by depending on mail-transport-agent alone. This is not an argument against defining a default-mta virtual package, this is an argument against having stupid bugs in the implementation. > I would prefer to create a real empty package: > default-mta (maybe in a source package debian-defaults), which depends > on exim. This unavoidably couples Debian's choice of a default MTA for users who install the new release, to the behavior for users who are upgrading from a previous release, because users who have such a 'default-mta' package installed will find their MTA changed on dist-upgrade. This was already discussed in the thread referenced by Holger. > [1] policy 7.5 has only a note: > : If you want to specify which of a set of real packages should be the > default to satisfy > : a particular dependency on a virtual package, you should list the real > package as an > : alternative before the virtual one. > Probably we should be stricter. Stricter about what? There are lots of cases where it's useful to have only one package at a time provide a virtual package, and to have other packages reference that virtual package on its own (think build-dependencies). -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
