[Debian-med-packaging] Script extensions (Was: Bug#730722: t-coffee: will become a friend of ncbi-blast+ package)

[Charles Plessy]

Le Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 10:16:29AM +0100, Andreas Tille a écrit :
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 10:39:09PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> > I think that it is a pure waste of time.
> 
> I'd invite everybody to (re)read my posting about this:
> 
>    http://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2012/04/msg00103.html

Hi Andreas,

all these recommendations are good when the software is developed, but once it
is released and has been used for years, if the name is suboptimal, so be it.
People can ask Upstream to change it, but to do it only in Debian is vain, and
causes more harm than good.

> I'm a bit concerned that you, as a (former) policy editor are
> attributing our policy as idiotic.  I'd prefer a more moderate wording.

How about:  this recommendation is mostly relevant for core Unix functions that
need to be implementable in multiple languages, and not for bioinformatics
software that are never re-implemented.  On debian-devel, it is usually people
who have no stakes in our field (and sometimes not that many stakes in Debian's
core as well) who are the most inflexible about relaxing this policy.  They
often talk cheaply on how others should spend their time, and we should just
ignore them.

Note that I have challenged the Policy in http://bugs.debian.org/190753 and the
opinions expressed there are more balanced.  As mentionned there I still
plan to go to the Technical Comittee.  However, I refrained to do so during
my one-year service as Policy editor.  Also, I will refrain again until the
TC gets done with the init system controversy.

> In short: We could conserve the original names in
> 
>    /usr/lib/debian-med
> 
> and symlink with proper policy names to /usr/bin.

I still think that this is totally useless since the package with the original
upstream names is 100 % functional.  There is nothing broken, therefore nothing
to correct.

The appropriate action for those who want to ameliorate file names is to
promote Debian's Upstream guide and talk to Upstream directly, not to make
Debian-only changes.

Cheers,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan