Hi Josh, On Sat, 2010-10-09 at 13:14 -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> libm17n-0 recommends m17n-contrib and m17n-db, but does not give any > indication of the functionality these packages provide for programs that > use libm17n-0, making it difficult for a user to sensibly decide whether > to install them. For instance, emacs23 depends on libm17n-0, and seems > to work fine without these packages installed; what functionality of > emacs23 would not work without installing these packages? > > In general, these packages don't seem like "packages that would be found > together with this one in all but unusual installations". You've raised an interesting question. My initial reaction is Emacs should Depend on both libm17n-0 and m17n-db. Emacs appears to use libm17n and m17n-db for complex text layout. libm17n contains the C API and m17n-db contains the layout rules. So without both packages Emacs will not function correctly. For example, copy the following Sinhala text "කොහොමද" into Emacs with both libm17n-0 and m17n-db installed. Take a screenshot. Then remove m17n-db and copy the text into Emacs and see the difference. The upstream developers decided to split external contributions to m17n-db into m17n-contrib. However, my understanding is that they will merge in the next major release. > Please consider documenting the reason a user might want to install > these packages in libm17n-0's description, and please consider carefully > whether these packages need a Recommends or whether a Suggests would > suffice, particularly since Recommends get installed by default now. The relationship is either Recommends or Depends. Definitely not Suggests. Should a package's description contain explanations as to why it Recommends other packages? Is that a requirement? Do other packages already do this? m17n-db description already contains: "This package contains the database files used by m17n-lib." m17n-contrib description already contains: "This package contains the database files contributed by the community and used by m17n-lib." cya, # -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
