thought: dpkg and other dists
I have been reading the threads talking about the "LSB" and its possible
"endoresment" of RPM format. Some of this discussion has lead me to think
a little more about our own dpkg and the problems of multiple
distributions using the same package format
(ie the idea of an SuSE user downloading RedHat sysvinit and figureing
that an RPM is an RPM and installing it)
The problem here (as someon else stated) is that when multiple dists
use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility".
My thought is that a package managment system needs to take this into
account.
AFAIK no such field currently exists in the deb format (if I am wrong
then I am sure I will be told) so I would propose the addition of
a "distribution" field in the control file.
My thought is this...if in the future some other distribution decides to
use the deb format (I kno wthis seems unlikely right now but it could
happen) then they woul dput the name of their dist in that feild.
dpkg could check this against a dist name that is part of the
base system (or possibly should be contained in dpkg itself)
If this field does not match then dpkg should warn the user that
this deb is not made for the debian system and may not follow
debian policies, thus it may break other programs. It should then
prompt about whether or not to continue.
replacement of any package with a priority greater than "optional" (maybe
standard) should require a --force- addition.
I know this is probably not needed in many cases...since they might choose
different package names from us, and thus it should fail if it has any
dependancies which have differnet names, but we shouldnt rely on that.
Am I making sense here? I really doubt this would be hard to add...and IMHO
I think this would make deb a format much more friendly to use in other
dists. Of course this would have to be an optional field for a while
since existing debs don't yto my knolwdge have it, but eventually
I think dpkg should get to the point (after it has had time to
work its way into every package) where dpkg should warn even if it
doesn't exist
any thoughts? Yes I know this probably isn't really a high priority concern
but..its just a thought.
-Steve
PS I wont be able to read any replys to this after 1pm EST today
as I am going away for the weekend, I will be back tuesday night I hope
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