Some ideas about APT functionality

[Thomas Ward]

I have to 100% agree with Ralf here.

On 8/12/19 1:13 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> installing "alien" packages, based upon a different package management
> via apt, is a bad idea. This is not functional, it's dysfunctional.

This is well known to not mix and match different packaging styles. 
Some packages are even written for different filesystem specs and paths
that those packages expect won't exist on Ubuntu, and other problems.

If the question is whether we should expand to allow non-deb packages to
be installed with apt by wrapping around `alien`, I'm going to give this
a hard "No" (my opinion, but a strong one) as that kind of additional
non-deb 'wrapping' will be opening a potential can of worms worth of
issues by adding the `alien` wrapping and the potential for a flood of
"Why doesn't my RPM work with apt?" questions on Ask Ubuntu as well as
bug reports saying "This function doesn't work!".


Thomas

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