[Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#984802: conflicts: lcdf-typetools

[Samuel Thibault]

Jonas Smedegaard, le lun. 08 mars 2021 17:36:53 +0100, a ecrit:
> Quoting Samuel Thibault (2021-03-08 16:12:37)
> > Gürkan Myczko, le lun. 08 mars 2021 15:44:52 +0100, a ecrit:
> > > Package: otf-trace
> > > Version: 1.12.5+dfsg-7
> > > Severity: serious
> > > Justification: Sounds like a serious violation of ?10.1
> > 
> > Well, yes. The base issue is that OTF stands both for OpenType Font 
> > and Open Trace Format. Thus the marked "Conflicts".
> > 
> > The question is who should "own" the otfinfo command name?
> 
> Do you mean if the package already owning it is ok giving it up?

No, I rather mean that in name spaces it's hard to define a notion of
"owning" a name. The two meanings of "OTF" have sprinkled independently,
one can try to look at history to check "who came first", but that's
rather meaningless.

> > Packages names are not really a concern, I was fine with using 
> > libopen-trace-format-dev along the existing libotf-dev.
> > 
> > But command names are really a concern since that's what 
> > documentations, tutorials, etc. found on internet will say: "run 
> > otfinfo", and making Debian systems deviate from that will confuse 
> > users, be it for one side or the other side.
> > 
> > (and the probability that somebody works both on OpenType Font and 
> > Open Trace Format on the same machine is quite low).
> 
> I thought similarly about a clash between a JavaScript interpreter and a 
> ham routing daemon, but turned out the rules are quite strict: See 
> bug#681360 about node.

And yet it has been so for 9 years without anybody complaining.

Samuel