[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#460812: octave-doc, octave-info, etc. should be actual packages

[James R. Van Zandt]

Package: octave
Version: 1:2.9.19-2
Severity: normal


The "octave" package is a virtual package, which will automatically
install the most recent version of octave.  That is convenient.
However, there is no corresponding way to automatically install the
most recent version of the documentation.  Instead, I find myself with
a current version of octave but an outdated version of its
documentation.  It would be nice if these were empty packages:

   octave-doc
   octave-info
   octave-htmldoc
   octave-emacsen

Incidentally, I suggest you rewrite the Description something like this:

 This package is an empty 'virtual' package whose sole purpose is to
 install the current Octave version from the 2.1 branch (the
 recommended testing branch) Once you have the octave2.1 package
 installed, you can remove this package.  Or, you can leave it
 installed, and "apt-get dist-upgrade" will automatically replace it
 with the next branch of octave when it becomes available.

               - Jim Van Zandt


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'oldstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.17 (SMP w/1 CPU core; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages octave depends on:
ii  octave2.9                     1:2.9.19-2 GNU Octave language for numerical 

octave recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information