undefined | Better HN

0 pointsm46329d ago0 comments

> Yeah the name collision is unfortunate, but probably fine.

collisions, lol

  % apt-cache search biff
  biff - a mail notification tool
  gnubiff - mail notification program for GNOME (and others)
  wmbiff - Dockable app that displays information about mailboxes
  xlbiff - mail notification pop-up with configurable message scans

(along with 9 more matches without biff in command name)

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

dredmorbius29d ago· 2 in thread

Those are:

1. Not precise name collisions.

2. All mail-notification utilities, as was the original biff.

And since we're mentioning Debian, it has a policy requiring unique names within the Debian archive to be unique. Precedence goes to the earlier software packaged. Installed programs must also have unique names within a given system. The datetime Swiss army knife utility discussed here violates both policies.

As Debian policy is used both for Debian and derived distros (see: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#De...> for a partial listing), it has considerable influence.

burntsushi29d ago

I've renamed the project to bttf :-)

dredmorbius29d ago

That works on Debian ;-)

<https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=bttf>

Might want to ping the mods (hn@ycombinator.com) to update this submission title.

Edit: I'd typoed "bttf" as "btff" initially. Corrected shows partial but not exact matches on "libttfautohint1" and variants.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse