William Yang wrote: > I think some other package management systems (such as Debian's apt) have > virtual packages to address this need. For instance, in some cases the ssh > package was renamed to openssh-client, so ssh is just a virtual package that > is satisfied by openssh-client. Perhaps IPS could have virtual package > functionality, if it doesn't already? It probably won't address all the > issues that have been brought up, but it does address the package dependency > issue to an extent.
Essentially, yes. However, this just clutters the package namespace and search results with extra packages that contain no useful content. It also has a cost in management and processing overhead. The single package solution is the most efficient one, and it is less prone to error. -- Shawn Walker
