[csw-maintainers] Idea for a new check: binary name conflicts

[Maciej Bliziński]

2011/6/12 Peter Bonivart <bonivart at opencsw.org>:
> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Ben Walton <bwalton at opencsw.org> wrote:
>> Excerpts from Maciej Bliziński's message of Sat Jun 11 19:18:08 -0400 2011:
>>
>> Hi Maciej,
>>
>>> One of our guidelines has historically been to not provide binaries
>>> in /opt/csw/bin named the same way as the ones in /usr/bin.  For
>>> instance, bug 4533 has been filed because cups packages provide
>>> /opt/csw/bin/lp which conflicts with /usr/bin/lp.
>>
>> I'm not sure I'd consider this a problem.  If you're using cups, you
>> most likely want /opt/csw/bin/lp.  You don't want to have to learn new
>> commands for things that have traditional names (lp, lpstat, etc)
>> because cups is in play either.
>>
>>> What are your thoughts on adding a check for binary name conflicts?
>>
>> I don't see it as a conflict personally.  The filesystem provides a
>> separate name space and we're using it.  If you want the system lp,
>> either set the path accordingly or fully qualify it.  No point in
>> jumping through hoops for something like this, imo.
>
> I agree with Ben here.

My inclination was also that it is alright to provide binaries with
the same names.

In my case, there was a number of scripts written by developers, who
expected there to be a 'lp' command.  If we provided binaries with a
different name in /opt/csw/bin, then we would also need to make
symlinks to them from elsewhere, the same way symlink in /opt/csw/gnu
are provided.  I would also need to add /opt/csw/gnu (or equivalent)
to $PATH.  At the end of the day, it would be not much different from
just providing /opt/csw/bin/lp, just more complex.

In the case of CUPS, I have removed the stock Solaris printing
packages, so /usr/bin/lp and others were removed from the system.

Any more opinions from other maintainers?

Maciej