On Thu, March 15, 2012 03:10, Roland Hieber wrote: > On 09.03.2012 09:19, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote: >> On Fri, March 9, 2012 05:59, roh...@rohieb.name wrote: >>> Can't locate GD.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl >> >>> To make the springgraph tool more usable, the package should require >>> libgd-gd2-perl, not only recommend it. >> >> Can you clarify why you think that is the case? There are two >> considerations here: >> 1) Springgraph is only one of the tools in the package, and arguably one >> of the lesser used. Most users therefore won't be needing GD, and it's >> not >> a requirement for the large part of the functionality; >> 2) Apt by default installs recommends, so you would have needed to take >> explicit action *not* to have libgd-gd2-perl installed. > > It seems I have another understanding of the difference between Depends > and Recommends. In my opinion, Depends should reference other packages > which are required in any case to use every part of the package, > otherwise parts of it would not work, and Recommends should reference > other packages which are not in every case needed to use all parts of > the package (I'm thinking of optional plugins or anything like that...).
How is this not a case of a package "not in every case needed to use all parts of the package"? It's only needed to use a very specific part of the package (1 out of 14 tools, and I reckon a minor one). > The Debian Policy also states in section 7.2 that Recommends declares a > strong, but not absolute, dependency. How is this not the case here? You can use nearly all functionality of signing-party, but to use really all, you need to install Recommends aswell. > Also, I am one of the users that have automatic installation of > Recommends turned off in aptitude, because I want to keep my system as > light-weight as possible. I'm wondering however why this is possible at > all if it can lead to installed packages being (partly) unusable. It's possible, but the user that explicitly enables that step is bestowed with the burden of selecting among the Recommended packages those that he also needs. It's not that promoting it to a Depends is without cost. The gd2 library with all its graphics manipulation is rather depends-heavy. Exactly for people like you, who want to keep their systems as 'light-weight' as possible, we offer the option not to install the entire dependency chain of gd2 if you just want to use one or more of the 13 other tools in the package that don't require it at all. I'm not inventing this. See for example the widely used 'devscripts' package which only Recommends packages needed for one of the packaged scripts: http://packages.debian.org/devscripts They do seem to use your suggestion (3) to document which Recommends to install for which tool, though. Cheers, Thijs -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
