Top-level package names, UX questions

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 16/03/15 08:22, Michael Vogt wrote:
> 4) We also have the option that the package name in the
> meta/package.yaml is the name in the store. So either "apache.beuno"
> or "apache". That of course means that in order for a package to
> become a top-level namespace package it needs to be re-uploaded once
> with the new name "apache" and there is no automatic transition

The package.developer namespace allows us to have many versions of the
same package from different developers installed at the same time.

This will almost certainly not work for frameworks, however, which are
typically mediating a shared resource between apps.

So, if we can't guarantee that you can always have package.dev-a and
package.dev-b co-installed, perhaps it would be better not to allow that
altogether? If we said you can ONLY have one version of "package"
installed on a system at a time, lots of things get easier ("it's always
just apache.command") and some things get harder ("you can't have both
the mainline and a sideline version installed at the same time").

I'm leaning towards saying that developer versions would conflict with
mainline versions - for a device, pick one or the other. I can't
recalled why we went the other way, now, in prior discussions. Could
someone remind me of the rationale, or make the case from first
principles, for having both "apache" and "apache.beuno" installed on the
same device at the same time?

Mark