[Debtags-devel] Re: Dummy packages and metapackages (call for
consistency in the descriptions)
Justin B Rye
jbr at edlug.org.uk
Sat Oct 29 11:20:29 UTC 2005
>> Enrico Zini wrote:
Thanks for this, Enrico!
>> * Dummy packages
It may be too late to standardise on "transitional packages", but
I've always thought that was more self-explanatory.
>> * Metapackages
Adeodato Simó wrote:
> Would it be unreasonable to ask that metapackages have to be _empty_,
> i.e., that all their functionality it's in their control file?
Compare gcc, which works similarly to pull in a gcc-*. I recently
found that I had only gcc-* installed on a machine, not gcc itself,
with the result that a user's compiles failed - the /usr/bin/gcc
symlink is in gcc! But gcc doesn't claim to be a "metapackage";
it's a "dependency package". That's hardly self-explanatory, but
I agree that it's a distinction worth making.
Indeed, if dummy transitional packages were all called transitional
packages, we'd be able to distinguish between "dummy" metapackages
and ones that contain files...
--
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
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