[Python-apps-team] Bug#961245: mercurial-common: trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/hgext/git/__init__.py', which is also in package mercurial-git 0.8.12-1.2

[Julien Cristau]

On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 10:46:29AM +0200, Jakub Wilk wrote:
> * Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, 2020-05-22, 00:22:
> > dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/mercurial-common_5.4-1_all.deb (--unpack):
> > trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/hgext/git/__init__.py', which is also in package mercurial-git 0.8.12-1.2
> > dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
> > Errors were encountered while processing:
> > /var/cache/apt/archives/mercurial-common_5.4-1_all.deb
> 
> Note that there's no such conflict upstream, because hg-git installs the
> module as "hggit" (not in the "hgext" namespace).
> 
> This mess is my fault. When I packaged hg-git in 2009, it was so immature it
> didn't even have installation scripts. Instead their README said:
> 
> > Clone this repository somewhere and make the 'extensions' section in
> > your `~/.hgrc` file look something like this:
> > 
> >    [extensions]
> >    hgext.bookmarks =
> >    hgext.hg-git = [path-to]/hg-git
> 
> I decided to install it as a public module "hgext.git", without even talking
> to upstream. In retrospect, it was a terrible idea. :-(
> 
> Ideally this should be fixed by renaming the hg-git's module back to what
> upstream uses. But of course this is going to break all hg-git users'
> configurations. :-/
> 
I wonder if it's still early enough to ask mercurial upstream to rename
theirs.  Given
https://www.mercurial-scm.org/repo/hg/file/5.4/hgext/git/__init__.py#l3
I'll fix this issue for now by not shipping it in the package, so we get
some time to figure out the next step.

Cheers,
Julien