On Tue, 2016-09-20 at 21:41 -0400, Eli Schwartz wrote:
On 09/19/2016 11:49 AM, Gordian Edenhofer wrote:
What about adding a new option to pacman's '-D, --database' operator which would enable users to rename packages and add a corresponding provide field. This would empower everyone to decide on their own which packages they want in different versions and which they don't want. Pacman would handle file conflicts as usual without introducing a new kind of packages. Plus it would avoid discussions about which package should be a dummy package and which shouldn't be.
Was that meant to be some sort of a joke? Because even Debian is not that insane, AFAIK.
You bar for insanity is whether the debian folks do it? Please explain yourself why do you think this is the wrong approach for the problem. My reasoning would be that packaging a dummy package would result in the same 'renamed' package on the system but would require the package maintainer to take action. Btw. my Arch system is rock solid and I am not especially interested in dummy packages on my system but for those who need it it can be a huge difference. Therefore it makes sense to give those specific user base the ability to do so on their own. It wouldn't even be a dangerous operation since by adding a provide field one should be unable to brick the system. However I admit that it would require some additions to pacman which is obviously an argument against this but the way packages are treated would stay the same. Currently I don't see a reason why one should change the way of packaging just to circumvent the underlying problem.