Agenda for the 2009-03-31 Packaging Committee meeting

[Michael Schwendt]

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:45:27 +0200, Patrice wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 06:50:46PM -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> > 
> > Common Package Names - 
> >   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_package_names_packaging_guideline_draft
> >   FPC has discussed this at multiple previous meetings and continues
> >   to refine the draft.
> 
> In the 
> 
>   3. There is no conflict yet 
> 
> case, I think that some word could be said about using rare names (generic
> names or short names) since they are scarce and an allocation based on
> first serve could not be optimal from a global point of view (there 
> is a potential coordination failure or even free riding). Moreover careless 
> upstream who don't care about the issue are favoured over upstream who 
> restrain using the best names for the sake of the community.
> 
> I made a paragraph in 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging_tricks#Use_of_common_namespace
> that covers this issue:
> 
> In addition to the conflict issue, it should be remembered that generic names and names with less than 5 letters are scarce and so a first come first serve use of these words may lead to misuses. Upstream may not have a view of these issues, and choose a word selfishly (though with good intentions) without thinking about the big picture, so trying to work with upstream and convince upstream not to use generic names during reviews may be worth it. 
> 


Talking about "generic names":

  /usr/bin/parser : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/492935

It's only a matter of time till such file names cause conflicts.
If memory serves correctly, /usr/bin/parser has caused a conflict before.