Package: python3-nvchecker Version: 2.12-2 Severity: important Control: affects -1 + nvchecker X-Debbugs-C: [email protected], [email protected]
Hi, I spent a deeper look at these two packages after reporting the undeclared file conflicts earlier and observe more problems here. It seems to me that src:nvchecker originally packaged this and later src:python-nvchecker duplicated it. In theory, we should have removed the duplicate and rescued the existing package. Instead, both got maintained concurrently. Eventually I reported the file conflict and that resulted in python3-nvchecker to declare Breaks+Replaces+Provides nvchecker. This effectively is a package takeover. Is it coordinated in any way? Is it authorized by the present src:nvchecker maintainers? Now given that src:nvchecker has received its last maintainer upload in 2021 and lacked behind upstream by several versions, we can certainly say it wasn't in its best shape. From a wider perspective, handing over maintenance to a more active maintainer can be beneficial. At this point, it would most probably make sense to simply remove src:nvchecker from unstable after figuring out what good aspects (e.g. an example file) can be rescued into src:python-nvchecker. Last but not least, Provides is not a proper package transition. apt will not move an existing installation of nvchecker over to python3-nvchecker by itself. src:nvchecker should temporarily include a real, transitional nvchecker binary package to finish the transition. Introducing a new binary package requires a freeze exception, but this seems like one of those cases where I expect it to be granted. Helmut
