[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#383212: ntp: relationships with -server, -simple, and -refclock needlessly strict, and block other packages from upgrading

[Branden Robinson]

Package: ntp
Version: 1:4.2.0a+stable-2sarge1
Severity: normal
Tags: patch

As far as I can tell, ntp introduced versioned Replaces and
Conflicts on the packages now merged into it, when there was no
reason to do so.

Because versioned Provides are not supported, this causes bugs
like #380372 -- needlessly so, in my opinion.

There doesn't appear to be any reason to have these
relationships be versioned, as the packages no longer exist.
If they did, #380372 wouldn't have happened, and there would be
an ntp package in testing for amd64 today.

Please find a patch attached.  If I have misunderstood the
problem, or there is a subtlety lurking here demanding that the
relationships be versioned, please enlighten me.  I'm just
reasoning from experience with more package merges and splits
than I care to recall with X... :)

Another fix would just be to add unversioned Provides: on the
three packages, but the versioned Replaces and Conflicts beg
for explanation, in my opinion.  dpkg now supports # comments
on lines by themselves in control files, and that would be a
good place to document such facts.

Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-3-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages ntp depends on:
ii  libc6                 2.3.2.ds1-22sarge3 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libreadline4          4.3-11             GNU readline and history libraries
ii  libssl0.9.7           0.9.7e-3sarge1     SSL shared libraries
ii  perl-modules          5.8.4-8sarge4      Core Perl modules
ii  psmisc                21.5-1             Utilities that use the proc filesy

-- no debconf information

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