Re: gedit: problematic 'gnome-text-editor' alternative

Robie Basak writes:

> 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").

Thanks for your reply, Robie, and for offering that perspective.

To clarify, both gedit and gnome-text-editor are maintained by the
same people - the Debian GNOME team - and we are in agreement about
the severity of this.  It's just that the obscure alternative was
totally forgotten about - I believe it dates back at least 20 years,
way before gnome-text-editor was a project of its own.

We think the best way forward would be to remove the conflicting
alternative from gedit, rather than change gnome-text-editor to ship
its binary with a different name (or to declare it conflicting with
gedit, which would not be a desirable outcome and not conforming with
the policy anyway).

My main hope with this thread was to get feedback about the specific
approach for removing the alternative.  I think simply checking that
the alternative exists in postinst configure and removing it would be
enough.  I also made its removal in prerm more clearly conditional.

https://salsa.debian.org/gnome-team/gedit/-/merge_requests/11

Having tested a few different scenarios locally, I believe it works
well.  So, I've proposed it for review, and plan to upload to unstable
in the coming days if there's no further feedback or objections.

Thanks,
-a

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