[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#503367: Again: Bug#503367: plink: file conflict with putty-tools

[Daniel Leidert]

Andreas Tille wrote:

> in October last year there was a longish discussion about name space
> pollution regarding plink.  If you like to spend some time you should
> read the complete log of #503367 [1].
> 
> I decided to put an end now on this issue to make sure it will
> not remain as is for ever and renamed the entry in /usr/bin.
> This is explained in README.Debian of this package (see svn[2]).
> 
> Two questions are left on my side:
> 
>    1. On the one hand plink upstream claimed on their website[3] that
>       Debian *has* renamed plink to snplink (which is not really true
>       because the discussion ended without any real action).  But Gentoo
>       went the same road to "follow" Debian.
>
>       So there is one established way which is accepted upstream to 
>       handle this problem.
> 
>       On the other hand there is this other biological project which
>       has a snplink as well.[4]  While chances are not really high
>       that this software will also be packaged - you can not know.

What about using /usr/bin/PLINK? I can't find a requirement in the
policy to use lowercase characters for a binary/script. Maybe I missed
it?

>       So what is better: Just seeking for another name which hopefully
>       is singular and asking upstream as well as Gentoo to change as
>       well or live with the small risk to run the same circle of name
>       space pollution in case the other snplink will be packaged?
> 
>    2. Is the information that plink was renamed to snplink visible
>       enough or should I rather use a debconf note to make users really
>       aware what they have to do?

Well, a NEWS entry is mandatory in this situation. I would further
suggest to put this information into the package description too and
of course leave an entry in README.Debian.

Regards, Daniel
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