On 2019-02-05 17:52:27, Matthijs van Duin wrote:
> Package: etckeeper
> Version: 1.18.10-1
> Severity: normal
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> "apt-get install etckeeper" on one of my systems advised me:
>
> The following additional packages will be installed:
> libpython-stdlib libpython2-stdlib libpython2.7-minimal
> libpython2.7-stdlib python python-minimal python2 python2-minimal
> python2.7 python2.7-minimal
>
> I'm not very happy about this. Python 2 is pretty much unmaintained and
> is approaching its (already extended) EOL date. Moreover, it seems that
> etckeeper only requires python when using bzr as VCS (which I'm not).
> Since bzr is an optional dependency of etckeeper, it makes no sense for
> python to be a mandatory dependency.
I'm not happy about this either. I tried to port to Py3 (#883145) but
the reality is that etckeeper is not Py3k ready, because bzrlib isn't
ported yet (#906000), or at least wasn't back then.
What would you prefer the package do? bzr is not exactly an "optional"
dependency (as in "recommends" or "suggests"), it's an "alternate"
dependency (as in "git or mercurial or bzr or darcs"). If you have bzr
installed and not git, bzr will be the installed dependency and you'll
need those depends to have this working.
This is, effectively, the current Depends line:
Depends: git (>= 1:1.7) | mercurial | bzr (>= 1.5~) | darcs, debconf (>= 0.5)
| debconf-2.0, python:any (<< 2.8), python:any (>= 2.7~)
I guess I could just drop the "python" dependency from there completely
and rely on the bzr bits to do the right thing if they are setup.
Would that be okay for you?
--
A riot is the language of the unheard.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
