What's worse: unowned directories or multiple owners?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 15:26 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 06:46:39 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> > > You misunderstood me completely. Let me rephrase. There are multiple
> > > packages which include the /usr/share/emacs directory. So, currently any
> > > dependency on that directory would pull in an arbitrary package which
> > > provides this directory (shortest pkg name wins in Yum). What does this
> > > mean for any package which would "Requires(pre): /usr/share/emacs"?
> >
> > It would pull in another package you don't want and don't have any use
> > for. That's why I consider it harmful.
> 
> That's why ownership of directories should be limited to one package only
> _and_ no such dependencies on directories must be implemented as long as
> there are multiple packages which provide that directory.
With all due respect, you are trying to derive a general rule and to
overengineer a rule, were there is none. It all depends on details.

> But you don't want to understand. I do not propose such a "Requires".
A Requires(pre): <dir> is appropriate for plugs-ins, which are tied to
one or several applications, such as mozilla/firefox plugins.

Examples for corner cases would be pkgconfig files, aclocal macros or
tex styles. Here it's up to the eye of the beholder to decide if these
are tied to one application or if they are optional components.

Ralf