[packagekit] Handling of License Prompts

[Richard Hughes]

On 11/09/2007, Andreas <tradiaz at yahoo.de> wrote:
> I think there's no way working around user interaction.
> Besides license texts what du you do with conflicting packages?

There should be little or no conflict resolution done in the backend. If
I have two packages that cannot co-exist (why?) then the following
should happen:

Installed: xorg-driver-nv
Trying to install xorg-driver-nouveau (which conflicts with -nv)

Error: PackageConflict, "Cannot install 'Free 3D NVIDIA driver' without
removing the xorg-driver-nv package"

Then the user has to find the conflict (maybe we can present this in
package detail and make it easy to click) and remove and then install
the -nouveau package. Really this is quite uninteresting as the user
shouldn't _have_ to worry about conflicts, only admins and developers.

Seriously, if my girlfriend got prompted with a box saying "Cannot
install OpenOffice without removing Abiword" she wouldn't have a clue
what to do. If _I_ got a message saying "cannot install kernel-xen
without removing kernel" then I know what to do. PackageKit is aimed at
the former user, not the latter.

I think we have to remember: PackageKit isn't going to replace more
powerful tools such as synaptic or the command line, it's only going to
be good enough for 95% of users and 95% of use-cases. Bear in mind 95%
of typical users are not comfortable on the command line (just look at
the ubuntu forums for examples), and do not know how to program, and
so I think it's
worthwhile to target at them.

Richard.