What about patching elm to name the program differently?
Another option would be to make elm depend on metamail unconditionaly.

Jaromir

Jan Schaumann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Currently, elm and metamail conflict with each other as they both
> install 'mmencode'.  This is the only file they share.  Unfortunately,
> this conflict prevents a user from installing exmh (which depends on
> metamail) and elm at the same time.[1]
> 
> Attached are patches to solve the conflict:  if elm is installed before
> metamail, it installs mmencode.  An installation of metamail after that
> will depend on elm.  Similarly, if metamail is installed first, it will
> install mmencode and if you install elm afterwards, it will depend on
> metamail.
> 
> For pkgsrc this seems reasonable to me, with the restriction that one
> should run 'make clean' before starting to install either.  Now the
> problem is with binary packages, I guess.  It's possible to create
> binary packages of each by itself, and they would then conflict with
> each other.
> 
> I guess a solution would be to extract mmencode out of both those
> packages and create a third package mmencode on which both could depend.
> But then, where to get the sources for mmencode from?  From the metamail
> sources?  From the elm sources?  What if either makes changes to
> mmencode and it becomes incompatible with the other?
> 
> Or should we see if we can install mmencode under a different name in
> one of the packages?  After all, metamail itself symlinks 'mimencode' to
> 'mmencode', so it might be possible to simply install 'mmencode' _as_
> 'mimencode' under metamail.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> -Jan
> 
> [1] Some of my users use exmh, others elm, others *shudder* emacs' RMAIL
> mode... oh why can't they all just use mutt and be happy?
> -- 
> I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle.

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-- 
Jaromir Dolecek <jdolecek@NetBSD.org>            http://www.NetBSD.org/
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-=- sometimes levitate or glow.   Do not let this distract you.''     -=-