David Paleino <da...@debian.org> writes:

> section § 2.2.1 of the Policy reads as follows:

>  [..] the packages in main:

>      - must not require a package outside of main for compilation or execution
>        (thus, the package must not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
>        "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-main package),

> I understand the intent of the sentence in parenthesis, i.e. not to
> automatically install non-main packages while installing main ones, but
> "Recommends" are not a "requirement" for installing the package, as per
> definition in § 7.2 ("a strong, but not absolute, dependency"). If it
> was otherwise, it should be listed as Depends, and the whole package
> should be moved to contrib (thus, it's a bug in the package).

> Automatic installation of Recommends is a per-system configuration
> option, and shouldn't be assumed in Policy IMHO.

> I suggest to drop "Recommends" from that sentence or, if we want to make
> sure no non-main packages get pulled in, maybe that "require" should be
> changed to something else ("cause the installation of"? I don't
> particularly like this though).

I don't think there's going to be consensus for allowing main packages to
Recommend non-free packages, so I went ahead and made the minimal wording
change to avoid the contradiction, namely:

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index bfb7cf5..755e6f7 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -488,9 +488,9 @@
            In addition, the packages in <em>main</em>
            <list compact="compact">
              <item>
-                 must not require a package outside of <em>main</em>
-                 for compilation or execution (thus, the package must
-                 not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
+                 must not require or recommend a package outside
+                 of <em>main</em> for compilation or execution (thus, the
+                 package must not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
                  "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-<em>main</em>
                  package),
              </item>

There's another bug where another angle of this is currently being
discussed.  (#587279)

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/878vm04j22....@windlord.stanford.edu

Reply via email to