Need insight on designing a package manager

[Christoph Lameter]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006, John Richard Moser wrote:

> Christoph Lameter wrote:
> > That is a problem with Sun Java destroying Debians package tracking 
> > database?
> 
> No, Sun Java did something where it put a piece of information on the
> system (like a cookie) to remind itself that I said no, then aborted
> install.

That is still not following the requirements of the package manager. It 
should have removed the file or registered it with dpkg.

> Now, this is an arbitrary system change.  Imagine if it decided to
> install a rootkit?  And dpkg just decides, "Oh, it failed to install"?
> Do you see a problem?

Its not dpkg its Sun Java's preinst. And AFAIK Sun Java is not part of 
debian anyways.