-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 02:34:55PM +0200, Niko Tyni wrote: >On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 01:07:34PM +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > >> I am now preparing an updated package that makes ghostscript depend on >> gs-common >= 8.62.dfsg.1-3.1. > >> @Niko: you mention that this would cause a circular dependency. I >> believe that is not the case when the dependency is versioned and newer >> than the versioned conflict. If I misunderstood, then please elaborate. > >The circular dependency I was referring to is that gs-common already >depends on (unversioned) ghostscript, and this introduces the other >direction. I'm not sure if that is a problem at all, probably not.
Thanks for clarifying! (doh, how did I miss that?) Circular dependencies are indeed bad, even when tied to same source package. I believe it is not a policy violation (§7.2 even documents how they should be treated), but so tricky to avoid that they are strongly discouraged. So this bug really is #495703 wrongly assumed fixed by adding a prerm to gs-common. @niko: When you proposed to add a dummy prerm script to gs-common, did you then consider enhancing ghostscript instead? Reading Debian Policy §6.8, first few lines, it seems possible to add a (dummy?) abort-remove section to ghostscript. Alternatively, if gs-common dummy prerm is really required, then it needs to always be applied, which means we mandate ghostscript-x on all installations: Old gs-common depended on "any ghostscript", including the X11 driver, and even if the package was not advertised as such, other packages abused that to ensure a working ghostscript without favouring any in particular. In principle we could ignore that assumption from other packages and simply drop the gs-common dependencies on ghostscript and ghostscript-x, and then file bugreports against packages failing to work. But really that is unacceptable this late in the release process IMHO. I would hate to enforce X11 on all ghostscript installations, so looking closer at an alternative solution for the underlying bug#495703 would be nice. - Jonas - -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkkQVZ8ACgkQn7DbMsAkQLhf2wCfZXUSBi6/6vxMCwkOxVxYGNCG C1wAn1UVp2n7vgymTH+tTG7Kv4V4SvRC =npFz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
