On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Susan G. Kleinmann wrote:
> Ian Jackson and I have had several exchanges by private email
> having to do with the dependencies in dpkg, following my bug reports:
> #4262 (dpkg-source requires cpio) and #4263 (dpkg-source requires patch).
>
> We have now come to an impasse. Ian suggested if I were to bring this
> to debian-devel "perhaps someone there will set you straight."
>
> Here are the arguments:
>
> I> cpio is only required by dpkg-source, and not to install packages.
>
So? Dpkg-source is a program that will not function without the proper
version of cpio, or patch, or diff. This program, by your own definition
depends on these other programs/packages. Since it is a delivered
functionality of dpkg, it seems only logical that the package should
reflect this dependance.
> S> It is unreasonable to install software (dpkg-source) which won't
> S> function at all without additional files.
>
> I> So are you suggesting that I should split dpkg up into half a dozen
> I> packages ? Since debian-changelog-mode.el won't work without Emacs I
> I> have to make dpkg depend on Emacs ? Since you can't use
> I> dpkg --print-architecture to determine the build architecture unless
> I> you have GCC and libc installed I should make dpkg depend on those ?
> I> Since dpkg's NFS installation method won't work without NFS loaded
> I> into the kernel I should refuse to allow dpkg to install properly if
> I> you don't have that configured in ?
>
> S> Yes.
Well, maybe not a half dozen ;-) However, dpkg and dpkg-dev sounds like a
good start. Put all the installation programs, dpkg, dselect, etc, into
dpkg and all the development tools like dpkg-source into dpkg-dev. This
should make it clearer to you that dpkg-dev does, in fact, depend on the
packages in question. WRT the emacs piece, this is not a program, but a
thing (script?) that emacs can run to look at dpkg files and as such
represents "enhanced" functionality, so at the most, it might need to
appear in the suggests list. On the other hand, if one of the programs
providing functionality in the package actually needs this file to
operate, then yes, emacs should be in the dependancy list.
Luck,
Dwarf
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