On Wed, 2025-08-13 at 03:43 +0800, Ameyama Izumi wrote:
> Hello,
> The VLC package in [extra] was recently split into multiple
> subpackages (vlc, vlc-plugin-*, vlc-gui-*, etc.). This change adjusts
> dependencies, separates plugins, and alters installation paths. It
> affects not only VLC users but also other packages and third-party
> scripts that depend on VLC.
> 
> This change has already caused multiple issues for me and others I
> know.

Well yeh - we seem to have gone on a bit of a split package party of
late.

While I do definitely understand there can be reasonable motivations
(such as a disk space benefit for larger packages, such as linux-
firmware), my view is we should follow upstream 'almost' all of the
time unless there is a really, really good and substantial reason not
to.

By this I mean (IMHO) that the rule should be if the upstream git repo
provides a bunch of things, our package of same should contain the same
bunch of things. Some exceptions are fine but only with a pretty solid
reason when we choose to not follow upstream.


Splitting packages is also a lot of work and can add quite a lot of
complexity to the PKGBUILD as well. In this regard I also believe we
should also apply the KISS principle [1] for all the usual reasons.

I did not look into vlc as to what is in the vpc repo nor what any
benefit might be to splitting them into multiple paackages. 

Perhaps David can comment on the rationale for the split?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

-- 
Gene

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