On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 04:31:46PM +0200, Kurt Roeckx wrote: > In general, I disagree that we should declare a conflict at both > sides of the conflict and that the package manager should be able > to deal with a conflict on just one side. It's not a conflict that > involves version numbers.
The idea behind not automatically having the conflict effect both sides is that a package which declares a conflict has a competitive advantage over the conflictee as it reduces the score of the conflictee which makes it easier for the conflictor to win against it in fights. If apt would apply the conflict automatically on both sides the advantage disappears. That hinders the successful resolution of the usual situation in case a conflict isn't declared on both sides: The package which hasn't the conflict is the "old" package (not updated for the release e.g. because it was removed) which should loose against the "new" package which has the conflict declared. Beside that little heuristic trickery I believe it to be cleaner and more discoverable for a user that such a conflict exists and is intended if it is declared on both sides. And lastly, I guess 'domain knowledge' is involved as we wouldn't be talking if libssl-dev would be a new mail-transport-agent. It would be perfectly clear that it must conflict with the others even if there is no technical reason for it given that the other mail-transport-agents already conflict with it. Best regards David Kalnischkies
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