Hi FYI: I'm not a Debian developer; just a mere user with an opinion...
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 12:05:48PM +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote: > Hello people. This is about: > > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=747716 > > Currently libqt5sql5-sqlite is given as a recommends and not a depends > for qttools5-dev-tools > (https://packages.debian.org/sid/qttools5-dev-tools) whereas > /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin/assistant, one of the programs > installed by the latter package, cannot even start up without > libqt5sql5-sqlite being installed. I hence requested to change it to > depends. > > The developers say "no, recommends is right in this case since only > assistant requires it and the other tools in the package do not -- you > should have recommends installed by default in your system in most > cases -- if you don't, that's not a problem of the packaging". Hm... I do not agree with that. The binaries in the package *should* work (in their default configuration if at all possible) with only hard dependencies present, without relying on "Recommends"... > I pointed out that the specification at > https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dreq.en.html#control > says to use depends "if your program absolutely will not run ... > unless a particular package is present." Yes. And the verbiage for "Recommends" is (amongst other things): Use this for packages that are not strictly necessary but are typically used with your program I have to admit that I can sort-of see the developer's point there. I guess the developer(s) can have a (somewhat weak) argument here if there is some combination of command line options or configuration file settings (e.g. to use a different database driver?) which then allows the program to run. Perhaps even one installed outside the packaging system. If this is the case, I'd hope to see a meta package (e.g. qt5-sql-driver) which is implemented by the requisite packages - and thus a dependency in the style of: Package: qttools5-dev-tools Depends: qt5-sql-driver | libqt5sql5-sqlite (or perhaps "libqt5sql5-sqlite | qt5-sql-driver" - I'm doing this from memory. There's a mention of meta packages dependencies somewhere in the policy manual IIRC). There may be such a meta package already. I haven't checked. > IMO something that a program can't even start without should be a hard > dependency and not just a recommends. A user may disable installation > of recommends for whatever reason. This should not prevent the user > from even starting up the program! I'd agree with that sentiment :-) Another way to resolve this could be to relegate the assistant into it's own package (which would have hard dependencies on libqt5sql5-sqlite and qtttools5-dev-toos), and let the main package recommend the assistant package? -- Karl E. Jorgensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140513073219.GC5817@hawking
