On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 07:02:19AM -0500, Amin Bandali wrote:
> We received https://bugs.debian.org/1057184 last month about gedit's
> 'gnome-text-editor' alternative becoming problematic now that there is
> an actual gnome-text-editor package/binary.
It sounds like this is being looked at backwards. If the
/usr/bin/gnome-text-editor name was already being used by packages using the
alternatives system, then a gnome-text-editor package arrived that
stepped on the name, then it's the latter package's bug that it collides
without at a minimum declaring a Conflicts against those existing
packages. It probably shouldn't just step on that name without
coordinating with the maintainers of those packages.
It's probably just an oversight, but I think it's important to consider
it from this perspective. A package doesn't just get to take over a slot
in the namespace that is already used for some purpose because an
upstream decided to start using it.
Therefore the bug should probably be reassigned to gnome-text-editor as
it introduced a serious policy violation (section 10.1 "Two different
packages must not install programs with different functionality but with
the same filenames").
