New comment by Duncaen on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/34192#issuecomment-1059986053

Comment:
> Also, why is renaming packages a pain? Isn't there a `replaces=` field in templates?

This just makes xbps replace the other package if the replacing package is being installed, i.e. through a dependency.
If you've manually installed `python3-foo` and nothing depends on it that would pull in the new package with the `replaces` directive into the xbps transaction it will never be installed or replace any package.

This can not be changed as this is also used by some packages that act as an alternative for another package, i.e. nvidia used to replace the mesa libgl implementations, so by installing nvidia you can replace the open source implementation, without having to force break and uninstall the opensource implementation first.

The only alternative to this is to use "transaction dummy packages", i.e. a meta package with the old name and a higher version that depends on the new package name which then in turn replaces the old name.
But this is kinda buggy in the current xbps release and drops the manual/automatic install mode sometimes.

But that is also not a nice solution and would require us to ship 937 dummy packages for who knows how long until everyone updated their system.

Its simply not worth it with the current solutions to rename all those packages.