Bug#1098948: Changing 10.1 requirements for /usr/games

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2025-02-26 15:55:06 +0100, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> Of course this does not consider conflicts, so in practice we have
> some false positives. Here is an example output.
[...]

As the policy is written, a Conflicts does not seem to be a resolution
for programs with the same filenames:

10.1
Two different packages must not install programs with different
functionality to the same filenames, even names under different
directories, when the directories are on the default PATH.

There is no mention of non-conflicting packages here (such as
"Two different non-conflicting packages"), and it does not say that
this concerns simultaneous installations (or on the same machine).

As I understand it, if a program name "foo" comes from conflicting
packages A and B, this may confuse the user and possibly scripts
(or configuration in applications that run other programs) if
package A is installed on some machine and package B is installed
on another machine, or if some day on some machine, package A gets
removed and package B gets installed. This could be a reason why
such a case may be forbidden, just like for non-conflicting
packages.

Moreover, if the program "foo" does not do the same thing in these
two packages A and B, then the user may want to be able to use both
programs on the same installation, which would be possible if the
program names were different (avoiding the package conflict).

-- 
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Bug#1098948: Changing 10.1 requirements for /usr/games

[Jeremy Bícha]

On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 7:36 AM Sean Whitton  wrote:
> Therefore I am seeking seconds for the following patch.

Sean, I appreciate the work you do on Debian Policy. I can understand
your desire to want to quickly release a hotfix because the effects of
4.7.1 were more disruptive than you intended. In this case, you got 3
"seconds" which is great, but I believe there were also multiple
people replying here that Policy didn't need to be reverted. So I was
surprised to see 4.7.2 announced so quickly but apparently after you
had already seen replies against your proposal.

Maybe it's not that big of a deal and we can expect a version of the
4.7.1 Policy wording to be restored soon after Trixie is released. And
maybe it is appropriate for the Policy Editor to quickly and
decisively act since we're late in this release cycle.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bícha