[Mono-list] Re: [DotGNU]pnet/mono packaging conflicts

[Fergus Henderson]

On 21-Oct-2003, Rhys Weatherley <rweather@zip.com.au> wrote:
> Recently, some packaging conflicts between Portable.NET and Mono have
> come to light, revolving around binaries in both packages with the
> same names (especially ilasm).  This is causing problems for users
> of all major GNU/Linux distributions.
> 
> Portable.NET has been using those names since early 2001, well before the Mono
> project was first publicly announced

I hate to be the one to break it to you, Rhys, but I think Microsoft was
using the name "ilasm" as a command name privately since _at least_ 1999,
and publically since the July 2000 PDC conference.

> As such, we believe that we have a two year priority
> on those names in Unix-compatible environments such as GNU/Linux.

Are you suggesting that commands should have different names in
Unix-compatible environments than in Windows?  That seems like
a recipe for unnecessary non-portability.

Both DotGNU *and* Mono should use a different name.
People may want to install them both on Cygwin, and be able to
easily choose between the MS version and the other two,
without having to change their PATH.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.