[Mageia-dev] Why does Mageia's Libreoffice obsolete OOo ?

Fri Sep 2 03:06:53 CEST 2011

I realise that many might think of LibreOffice as being nothing more 
+that a more recent version of OpenOffice, but upstream LibreOffice 
+package does not touch OpenOffice.
+It can be legitimate for a user to want both LibreOffice and OpenOffice 
+installed at the same time.
+Which is my case.  (To overcome a missing feature, which having both 
+running at the same time partially solves.)
+
+Recently I installed Mageia's package of LibreOffice (to replace the 
+upstream package of the same version I had already installed, only to 
+get rid of a persistant update suggestion),
+and it attempted to uninstall OpenOffice.
+(Only partially succeeding, probably since I had the official package, 
+and not mdv's package installed.  I had to reinstall Openoffice to make 
+it work properly.)
+
+So I think we should remove  "Obsoletes: openoffice.org" from the 
+Libreoffice spec (line 190 of the latest spec in cauldron), to avoid 
+this problem.
+If someone has Openoffice installed and wants to uninstall it, they can 
+always do so explicitly.
+
+This brings up an important point.  If there is a new application which 
+provides the same function as an existing application, but no conflict 
+exists between the 2 applications, why should we obsolete the existing 
+application.
+I have seen this on other occasions, such as between Mozilla Seamonkey 
+and Iceape.
+But at the same time, we don't do that for text editors. (e.g. gedit, 
+geany, and medit, all based on gtk+ -- which can similarly all be used 
+at the same time.)
+
+I think we should have a policy to _not_ obsolete applications if there 
+are no real conflicts between them.
+I'm not suggesting this for libraries, but for applications, especially 
+gui applications.
+To do otherwise is to unnecessarily impose our views of what users 
+should be permitted to install and use.
+
+-- 
+André
+
+