Subject: Re: New virtual packages suggestion

From: Bdale Garbee <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 22:55:32 -0600

In article <[email-masked]> you wrote:
: 
:   - compress	(or bsd-compress, please comment)	indicate that the
: 		package provide a true BSD compress command. Needed by my
: 		new compress-package, and useful for packages that can't
: 		be satisfied by compress being a synonym of gzip (though
: 		in the absence of an official Debian compress package, they
: 		should only recommends: it, certainly).
: 

There is no conflict with gzip, since the Debian gzip package very 
intentionally doesn't provide the 'compress' synonym.  It *does* provide a
link for 'uncompress', since that's useful even without a compress being 
around.  

For the rare cases where a real 'compress' is needed (building X, I gather,
among other things), the right thing to do would be to have a 'compress' 
package that provides just 'compress' and doesn't try to provide 'uncompress'.
This makes sense since gzip provides a fully-functional 'uncompress' link,
and is a required base package... thus, there'd be no conflict and no missing
pieces.

I see no value added by a virtual package here.

Bdale

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From: Richard Kaszeta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 07:15:07 -0500

>link for 'uncompress', since that's useful even without a compress being 

Really? At least the gzip in 'buzz', 1.2.4-10, installs /bin/compress.

-- 
Richard W Kaszeta 			Graduate Student/Sysadmin
[email-masked]			University of MN, ME Dept
http://www2.me.umn.edu/~kaszeta

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From: Guy Maor <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 11:55:19 -0500 (CDT)

> Really? At least the gzip in 'buzz', 1.2.4-10, installs /bin/compress.

That's been fixed in 1.2.4-11, which will be in rex.  It won't ever be
in buzz because it's not a serious bug.

Guy

---

From: Bdale Garbee <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 12:39:18 -0600

> Really? At least the gzip in 'buzz', 1.2.4-10, installs /bin/compress.

I don't believe that.  This is a bug that I fixed a couple of revision back,
long before 1.1 was released.

I'm the package maintainer for gzip.  I have local copies of both version 
1.2.4-10 as I uploaded it, and 1.2.4-11, which fixes a couple of unrelated
bugs and which was uploaded recently.  Neither installs a link for 
/bin/compress. Therefore, either you're mistaken about where the link came
from, or the gzip-1.2.4-10 that's in buzz isn't what I uploaded!

Bdale

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From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)
Date: 23 Jul 1996 18:41:00 +0200

> Really? At least the gzip in 'buzz', 1.2.4-10, installs /bin/compress.

I remember that being reported as a bug, and general consensus that it is,  
indeed, a bug, as that compress link doesn't do what it is supposed to do  
(generate compress-format files). It's about as useful as a link between  
tex and groff.

MfG Kai

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From: Michael Shields <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:03:46 +0000

>in buzz because it's not a serious bug.

Shouldn't all non-cosmetic bugs be fixed?

--
Shields, CrossLink.

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From: Yves Arrouye <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 23:53:45 +0200

> link for 'uncompress', since that's useful even without a compress being 

That's wrong. There's (unfortunately) a compress command in gzip. It should
be removed because programs needing compress will fail.

 > package that provides just 'compress' and doesn't try to provide 'uncompress'
Sure. And even if a compress binary is put in /usr/bin this will not cause
any problem.

 > I see no value added by a virtual package here.

The compress-package that I've built let one build a compress package
with different sources. For example I've built a compress-4.0 package and
a gnu-compress-4.0 package, the first one having atob, btoa, tarmail
and friends while the second don't.
  It is already a pain not to be able to provide a binary compress
package, I don't want to limit the choice of sources for people
building one with compress-package. And I don't want to force them to
name their package compress, one of the reason being that they may
choose to build different packages used on different systems.
  Having compress made virtual is the best way to get this freedom. In
addition to that, any package built with compress-package must
conflict with the other ones because it may divert some gzip binaries
or create symlinks (like gzcat -> /bin/zcat). I cannot make them
conflict without even knowing their names if they don't provide a
virtual package.

Yves.

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From: Dale Scheetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:21:34 -0400 (EDT)

> from, or the gzip-1.2.4-10 that's in buzz isn't what I uploaded!
Here is some more fuel for this fire ;-)
On my machine dpkg -s gzip says I have version 1.2.4-10. A dpkg -S
compress yields:
gzip: /bin/compress
ls -l /bin/compress yields:
-rwxr-xr-x   5 root     root         45121 Apr 14 23:15 /bin/compress

Gzip does not install a link. It installs a real executable binary!

As I personaly have no use or interest in uncompress, my statements hear
are simply to help clarify the facts.

Luck,

Dwarf

------------                                          --------------

aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (904) 877-0257
      Flexible Software              Fax:     NONE 
      Black Creek Critters           e-mail:  [email-masked]

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From: Guy Maor <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 11:29:13 -0500 (CDT)

On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Michael Shields wrote:

> Shouldn't all non-cosmetic bugs [in buzz] be fixed?

No, only serious bugs and security holes.  Otherwise there would be no
difference betweem rex and buzz.  The definition of 'serious' is a bit
vague (basically a bug that most people agree is a major inconvenience)
but gzip providing a compress link definitely doesn't qualify.

Guy

---

From: Yves Arrouye <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 00:45:33 +0200

> but gzip providing a compress link definitely doesn't qualify.

Are you sure? It may take some time before someone realizes that a
font installation which apparently went well (for example the one in
xtel) makes unusable X fonts because the files are gzipped, not
compressed, just because of this /bin/compress thing. I don't think it
should be kept for people who will install their first system.

Yves.