Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

major9989 · 2019-02-08 06:20:45

My AUR package was recently deleted because the community repos now contain another package with the same name. Both of the packages are different and just share the common name.

I added my package way before the community package was made. It had gained 2 votes (one was from me, though ). I was given the reason that my package was "not useful enough".

I agree it was not that useful package, but that shouldn't give the other package which came later precedence over my package, right?

I just want to discuss the ethicality of this action and how the precedence of a package is decided?

P.S. I don't want to offend/undermine the TU(s) for this.

Last edited by major9989 (2019-02-08 15:21:49)

jasonwryan · 2019-02-08 06:41:52

Official repos will always take precedence over unsupported ones.

Lone_Wolf · 2019-02-08 15:07:50

Did your package offer functionality that 's not present in the community version ?

major9989 · 2019-02-08 15:20:51

Oh, I forgot to include that in the header.

I had ** some other ** package named "xyz". By some other, I mean a completely different package than the package in the community repos.

I published my "xyz" package before than this new "xyz"package came out.

Alad · 2019-02-08 16:30:50

I have no idea what "xyz" is. If it's some AUR helper, then it's not useful enough.

Lone_Wolf · 2019-02-08 16:36:30

So your package provides a different application then the one in community.

I suggest 2 things :
- contact upstream of your package there's a name clash with something else.
- choose a suitable name that doesn't conflict with an exisiting one and re-upload that to aur.

example :
say community package deals with games and your package deals with ssl connections.
You could then use xyz-ssl as a temporary name .

major9989 · 2019-02-08 19:12:29

Alad wrote:

I have no idea what "xyz" is. If it's some AUR helper, then it's not useful enough.

xyz is the name of my package. It's not an AUR helper. But more useful than an AUR helper (jk, I love aurman).

Lone_Wolf wrote:

contact upstream of your package there's a name clash with something else.

They recently added the "lsd" package in the community repos. I am back with another name now. lsd-sim. Because, I couldn't think of any other name, and it's more of a simulator.

Thanks for your feedback everyone. I guess the package with the TU gets more precedence.

Last edited by major9989 (2019-02-08 19:14:40)

eschwartz · 2019-02-08 19:25:07

I'll have to admit both programs seem sort of pointless to me.

But hey, that is life. Difficult to deal with packages of the same name but completely different software, especially since there is no namespacing.

By the way, please add a conflicts=("lsd") as the package cannot be installed alongside this "ls Deluxe" thing.

major9989 · 2019-02-09 07:12:42

Lol. So, I'll go into the history of this program.

It predates to that time when I was learning shell scripting. I created this wonderful script during my pass-time, and I was quite amazed by it. When I got to know about Arch, and the AUR, I decided to add it here. Mainly because I wanted to keep it simple since it was going to be my first package.

I agree with you, it's pointless, but it seems fun .

Sure, I'll add the conflicts part soon.

Thanks for you reply! :3

Xyne · 2019-02-09 12:42:25

For name collisions between completely unrelated packages, priority is given to the one that most people think of first when they hear the name. This is usually the project that has been around the longest, but in cases of very small or unknown projects, new projects are given priority if they have gained a larger following. This leads to fewer surprises when users install a package with that name or when other projects depend on it.

In the absence of some universally accepted convention, name collisions are inevitable. Nevertheless, you can reduce their likelihood by picking a less generic (and preferably more informative) name.

That said, having only 2 votes is not a reason to delete a package from the AUR as "non useful enough". There are plenty of packages on the AUR with 0 votes for years. I suspect that the real reason is that the TU considered the package trivial but this should have been addressed by the TU, otherwise the TU should have discussed renaming the package with you instead of just deleting it. I'll bring this up on the mailing list.

edit: changed the last paragraph after thinking about it more

Last edited by Xyne (2019-02-09 13:08:56)

Trilby · 2019-02-09 15:13:27

So it seems that this thread has mostly run it's course, so perhaps it can indulge a little venting:

Upon first reading this thread, my thoughts were to tell major to get over it, repo packages can, will, and should take precedence, period. But after learning what his package was bumped for I find it rather disturbing - perhaps not his name getting bumped in favor of the new lsd added to community, but certainly the way in which it is done.

Major's lsd is a small silly little project with no functional purpose, but it may be mildly entertaining. [community]/lsd is a small silly little project with no functional purpose that will actively break things, and is not at all entertaining. It's is a horrible piece of crap.

[community]/lsd is a whole new package to do basically what ls can already do if properly configured in documented ways ... except for those icons. But lsd's icons don't show up on any of my terminals properly. There is no man page, minimal and uninformative --help output, and a readme that is only an advert. There is no obvious way to configure the colors or to make the icons actually work. But most importantly, the author recommends aliasing ls (and various ls options) to lsd commands. But lsd does not work at all like ls! It will completely fail in a subshell or pipeline.

Frankly I find [community]/lsd to be a shamefully bad bit of software. This is an opinion I'd probably keep to myself if the author and/or packager of it didn't effectively talk down to some other amateur coder by calling their similarly named project "not useful enough". That is really inexcusable when it's being contrasted to this [community]/lsd garbage and in my book warrants a thorough appology to major from the perpetrator of that deletion/comment.

EDIT, this last part may be what Xyne is planning to bring up on the mailing list. Xyne and I are clearly at opposite ends of the tact-spectrum, and while his approach may more likely get the other TU to acknowledge it was not the best way to handle the situation, I'm not sure it would really get them to consider just how foolish it made them look.

Last edited by Trilby (2019-02-09 15:21:25)

ugjka · 2019-02-09 15:44:48

I think it is an overkill to put any silly project on the AUR simply because you can. Provide a PKGBUILD in your git repository if you want it easier for arch users. Which is what i do for most stupid stuff.

Xyne · 2019-02-09 19:18:06

Trilby wrote:

Xyne and I are clearly at opposite ends of the tact-spectrum

Meh, I maintain that you can bluntly explain to someone why their idea was stupid without being gratuitously rude. What irks me are the people who are so quick to assume maliciousness and stupidity and just jump right into bashing someone with intolerable self-righteousness, especially when they have misjudged the situation and the intentions of others entirely. It's just toxic and an indication of social mal-adaptation imo.

It's the opposite of sugarcoating: instead of making something easier to swallow, they make it as unpalatable as possible. There is a neutral option between the two that requires no filter.

Trilby wrote:

I'm not sure it would really get them to consider just how foolish it made them look.

Probably not, but I'm not convinced that making them defensive would help the message get through either. People get too focused on arguing for the sake of not losing the argument rather than reaching some logical conclusion. We have enough of that bs in the world

Trilby wrote:

So it seems that this thread has mostly run it's course

Agreed, closing... pm me if you want to follow up on my comment.

Arch Linux

#1 2019-02-08 06:20:45

Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#2 2019-02-08 06:41:52

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#3 2019-02-08 15:07:50

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#4 2019-02-08 15:20:51

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#5 2019-02-08 16:30:50

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#6 2019-02-08 16:36:30

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#7 2019-02-08 19:12:29

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#8 2019-02-08 19:25:07

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#9 2019-02-09 07:12:42

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#10 2019-02-09 12:42:25

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#11 2019-02-09 15:13:27

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#12 2019-02-09 15:44:48

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

#13 2019-02-09 19:18:06

Re: Deletion of AUR package because community contains same named package.

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