[pkg-gnupg-maint] package shuffling for the GnuPG suite in buster?

Daniel Kahn Gillmor dkg at fifthhorseman.net
Thu May 18 21:34:00 UTC 2017


Hey Debian GnuPG folks--

It has bothered me for a while that we have packages named things like
"gnupg-agent" when the user-facing binary is named "gpg-agent" (and also
"gnupg" when the binary is "gpg").  Furthermore, most tools really want
to use gpgconf in some circumstances, but we don't have explicit
Dependencies on gpg, which is what provides /usr/bin/gpgconf.

I'm inclined to try to clean this up in buster (stretch+1) so i was
wondering what people think about it.

Below is a concrete proposal to consider.  i'm not sold on it, and i'd
be happy if someone wants to propose a better approach, as i think it's
currently too complex, but i don't know how to do it better.


After stretch releases:

 * pull out gpgconf into a separate "gpgconf" package.

 * dirmngr will add a Depends: gpgconf

 * rename the "gnupg-agent" package to "gpg-agent", and add a dependency
   on gpgconf to it.

 * make a dummy transitional "gnupg-agent" package that Depends:
   gpg-agent

 * point internal dependencies to the new normal name.

 * rename the "gnupg" package to "gpg", while moving its "Depends:
   gpg-agent" to Recommends:, and adding a "Depends gpgconf"

 * make a new (non-dummy) transitional "suite" package named "gnupg",
   which Depends: gpg, gpg-agent, dirmngr


This would mean:

 * people who upgrade will automatically get the new packages as
   expected.

 * documentation that says to install the "gnupg" package will still
   result in all the expected tools available.

 * very targeted installations can install /usr/bin/gpg to do signature
   verification and data encryption with keys that are independently
   managed without needing to pull in either gpg-agent or dirmngr.

What do y'all think?  Any counterproposals?

     --dkg
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