Marco d'Itri writes ("Re: Updating the policy for conflicting binaries names ?
[was: Re: Re: New package netgen-lvs with binary /usr/bin/netgen - already
taken]"):
> On Sep 08, Sean Whitton <spwhit...@spwhitton.name> wrote:
> > The current policy protects maintainers and users of less popular
> > packages from feeling that their package is less important in Debian,
> > just because something else that is more popular comes along and happens
> > to use the same name.
>
> Yes, and the I do not think that this is a good idea as we have seen
> with the nodejs fiasco.
> It is a fact of life that some packages are more popular ("important")
> than others, and pretending that this is not true does not change it.
I think the way we handled node.js was correct.
It is true that many people were inconvenienced. But most of those
who were inconvenienced who you are saying shouldn't have been, were
the people who chose the pckage which (i) came late (ii) whose
upstreams were totally inconsiderate.
It is right to impose the costs of an unjust act on those who are
aligned with the perpetrators, and not on the victims.
> The current policy maximizes discomfort for all parts involved in the
> name of creating equality where it does not actually exist, and this
> does not help anybody.
I think it did create equality in that the inconvenience for each
maintainer/user of the offending packages was similar.
Ian.
