On 2018-10-25 at 20:00, Russ Allbery wrote: > Marvin Renich <m...@renich.org> writes: > >> I certainly agree with you that 99.9% is clearly a wrong number for >> this. However I disagree that even 0.1% justifies using a different >> definition for Recommends than policy gives. > > libgpgme11 is not doing that. The library is literally unusable for its > actual technical purpose without gnupg installed, which clearly meets the > definition of Depends in Debian Policy:
I'm not sure I remember seeing anyone say that it did not meet the definition of Depends - merely that it does meet the definition of Recommends. > The Depends field should be used if the depended-on package is > required for the depending package to provide a significant amount of > functionality. This does not actually seem to conflict with the "would be found together in all but unusual installations" definition for Recommends; in a case where the depending package can still provide meaningful functionality without the depended-on package, but will miss "a significant amount of functionality" if the latter package is not present, both definitions would seem equally applicable. If that's correct, then the definitions don't actually help indicate which relationship should be declared in such a case. That strikes me as a flaw in the definitions, quite possibly an unintended one, and (if so) potentially a bug worth fixing. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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