Comment by m463

2 hours ago

> Yeah the name collision is unfortunate, but probably fine.

collisions, lol

  % apt-cache search biff
  biff - a mail notification tool
  gnubiff - mail notification program for GNOME (and others)
  wmbiff - Dockable app that displays information about mailboxes
  xlbiff - mail notification pop-up with configurable message scans

(along with 9 more matches without biff in command name)

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m463

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dredmorbius  1 hour ago

Those are:

1. Not precise name collisions.

2. All mail-notification utilities, as was the original biff.

And since we're mentioning Debian, it has a policy requiring unique names within the Debian archive to be unique. Precedence goes to the earlier software packaged. Installed programs must also have unique names within a given system. The datetime Swiss army knife utility discussed here violates both policies.

As Debian policy is used both for Debian and derived distros (see: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#De...> for a partial listing), it has considerable influence.