The deb Tag:
Overview:
deb is an file type tag. Questions that use it will either be about installing/getting a program in the debian package format, or
about the debian package format (eg: modifying/extracting/creating .deb archives).
Installing/Getting Questions:
Installation based questions can be broken into 2 types: installing a specific program, and installing .deb files in general.
Both of these are covered by more broadly by the software-installation tag.
Installing A Specific Program:
If a user is asking about installing a specific program from a .deb file then the question is really about installing
the program and should therefore be tagged with the tag for that program (eg: software-installationfirefox).
Since some programs are released in multiple package formats and it can be helpful to mention which
you are using when asking questions regarding how to install a program you're having trouble installing, but I'm not sure that
justifies tagging all software-installation questions with package type tags (eg: software-installationfirefox
deb or software-installationvmware-playerbundle)?
For example does the deb tag really add anything useful to these questions:
This question is about the Ubuntu Software Center refusing to install .deb files. It's currently tagged
installation, and deb. Does deb really do anything useful here? This question is about
the Ubuntu Software Center which for the record only supports .deb files.
This question is about installing World Of Goo on Ubuntu. It's in .deb format, but as mentioned before does
every question about installing a program really need to be tagged with the package format used. I think
software-installation, and world-of-goo (if it existed) would be enough. It would different
if there were 100s of package types to potentially install the same program from; under those circumstances
I could see importance of making such tags.
Again this is a program specific question, and therefore why tag it .deb. Tags like software-installation
and qq2012(if it existed) would work just fine.
Installing .deb Files In General:
These types of questions don't typically list a specific program to be installed, but state something like how
can I install .deb files on
this or like that. These questions are actually about a package managers, and package management which is covered by either the tag for the specific package
manager the OP is using (eg: synaptic,muon-package-manager, or gdebi) or in the case of not being
specificed the package-manager tag could be used. Given the limited array of package types for Ubuntu
do we really need to specify that .deb is being used? I think for the moment it's a step across the line of
being specific and being overly specific.
For example does the deb tag really add anything useful to these questions:
This question is about installing .deb files using Synaptic. Keyword being Synaptic, and since synaptic
only supports DEB archives what point is there in tagging it deb. Even if Synaptic supported other
formats it would still be a Synaptic question, and would only generate a number of questions equating to
the number of package formats so it's unlikely that enough questions could be made to justify sub-topics like
using Synaptic to install debs instead of just using Synaptic to install software.
This question is about installing .deb files that are in a folder. This is actually a good example of using the
deb tag. The question is about installing software, but more specifically programs using the debian package format.
That said this is really a poorly worded software-recommendation question. The OP is looking for a program that can install
.deb files from a folder. I think tags software-recommendation, and [package-manager] would work just fine.
This question is about python, and package management.
Questions About The Debian Package Format:
Questions about creating/modifying/extracting .deb files falls under the tag packaging. Currently the tag
is exclusive to debian packages, but if it were expanded beyond that to packaging of any format then the deb
tag could be used in harmony with it. For example a question about using dpkg-buildpackage to build deb packages
could be tagged dpkg-buildpackagepackagingdeb, but as mentioned before that currently isn't the case
because the packaging tag currently is only for debian packages making deb redundant on such questions. Even then
deb isn't a package type, it's an extention for debian packages so the suggestion of using debian-package instead
of deb makes sense to me, and I agree that it could help prevent promoting future creation of file type tags.
For example does the deb tag really add anything useful to these questions:
This question is about creating a debian package. It currently uses the packaging and deb. Since
packaging is only for creating debian packages the deb tag is pointless.
This question has the same issue the above one does. It uses packaging and deb. Also most questions
about creating debian packages like this are poorly worded software requests where the OP needs a program to create
a package, and instructions on how to use it. In this case the answer is about using dpkg-deb to create debian packages.
So either simply packaging would work, or software-recommendationpackager(if it existed).
Conclusion:
If the deb tag is to be kept I agree that a better name would be debian-package since that is a package type,
deb on the other hand is merely the package type extention, but my vote is to kill it rather than rename. The
only valid use I see it having is under the topic of packaging which currently would cause overlap since the packaging
is only for debian packages. Alternatively the packaging tag could be edited to be non-debian-package specific.
Overview:
The package tag is a synonym tag currently pointing to packages. This makes sense since it's merely a pluralization
of the word. I'm not sure if you are proposing to merge package or packages with deb to create the newly
suggested debian-packages?
The packages tag is for "questions about software packages, installing them, removing them, updating them and finding them
".
which is broader than the deb which is a specific package type. Honestly I've browsed through several questions and
I'm not sure what this tag does. It's often used with the package-management tag which makes it seem kind of pointless
to me, or a specific program tag because the user is looking for a download of the program. It's quite popular thought
with 1,522 questions using it. It's not just for debian packages, you could also ask about .bundle files if you wanted.
This tag is a step back, packages in general, then step forward to specifically debian packages. Potentially a question
about finding a Mozilla Firefox download in the debian package format could be tagged firefoxpackagesdeb, or a question about finding a VMware Player download could be tagged vmware-playerpackagesbundle(if it existed).
Conclusion:
I think it makes more sense to keep the package tag as a synonym for the packages tag rather than combine it with the deb tag.
Given that the packages tag is not restricted to debian package questions I see no point in merging it with the deb tag
as many questions may not work.
Summary:
I agree that renaming the deb tag to debian-package could help prevent promoting creation of file format tags. I
also think that since deb is a file extention not a file type debian-package makes more sense. However the
only questions I've seen that work well with it would be packaging related questions (most of which will be about
using a given software to create a package). Currently the packaging tag is
debian package specific so this makes the combined use with the deb tag pointless. The packaging tag could be changed
to be non-specific, and then the debian-package tag would have a use. However under those circumstances I think the
tag would be best described as one that "could be used" rather than one that is "needed". I therefore vote that the deb simply be removed, not renamed.
In regards to the package tag. It's a synonym of packages and therefore I assume your were actually refering to the
packages tag which is not specific to debian-packages so I don't think it works well to merge tags deb and package/packages
to create the debian-package tag as some questions may not be about debian packages.