  Inter-package conflicts require the presence of two or more packages in a
particular configuration, and thus tend to be harder to detect and localize
than conventional (intra-package) defects. Hundreds of such inter-package
conflicts go undetected by the normal testing and distribution process until
they are later reported by a user. The reason for this is that current
meta-data is not fine-grained and accurate enough to cover all common types of
conflicts. A case study of inter-package conflicts in Debian has shown that
with more detailed package meta-data, at least one third of all package
conflicts could be prevented relatively easily, while another one third could
be found by targeted testing of packages that share common resources or
characteristics. This paper reports the case study and proposes ideas to detect
inter-package conflicts in the future.
