On 2/9/20 8:43 AM, Shengjing Zhu wrote: > Source: debian-policy > Severity: wishlist > > I find there are two packages[1] in archive now installing real > program using > snap[2]. The two packages in main are definitely against policy. But the > maintainer is moving them to contrib, which has no problem with > current policy.
Since I'm the maintainer of those two packages, I figured I'd chime in here. :) > Technically snap is a package manager just like apt/dpkg. > I don't think there is any benefit to do this. People want to use snap > could > just install with snap, no need to call apt. 1) Perhaps surprisingly, I agree in principle that installing from an external source should not be "encouraged" under normal circumstances. 2) However, this illustrates a use case that perhaps has not come up in the past. As I explained in one of the bug reports against my packages, the rationale for this was to provide a temporary alternate functionality for end users while upstream goes through a period of instability. 2a) Ideally, I would have preferred to remove the packages in question from Debian and have a system that would have presented users with options for alternate sources of that package. I may try to hack something together for my packages because I agree with a comment on one of those bugs that transitioning to an alternate package source should not be done without explicit user action. 2b) In a general sense though, this seems like a mechanism that may have value beyond these two packages. For example, would it be possible for maintainers to list alternate sources of a package in a new field in d/control? Then, if a package must be removed from Debian either temporarily or permanently, users could be presented with alternate options for that package. Or if certain users want the bleeding-edge version they can easily get to it instead of pestering a maintainer to package something that is not stable enough for Debian. 2c) The problem with saying a user could just install from snap/flatpak/etc is that a user may not know what other options are out there and may not know if they are authoritative (e.g. many but not all packages are created by the upstream authors). What I am proposing (well, more like thinking about at the moment, and looking for feedback) is a system to create an equivalence between the official Debian package and the same package in other systems. Does anyone else see value in such a construct? > Another package manager in subject could be snap, flatpak, pip, nix, etc. > > [1] https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cyphesis-cpp > https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ember > [2] https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/snapd In summary, as snap/flatpak/etc increase in popularity I think it may be a good idea to have a formalized method for Debian package maintainers to designate authoritative equivalent sources for their packages, if they wish to do so. -Olek
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