On Tue, 2017-06-06 at 00:14 -0400, Afif Elghraoui wrote: > I see now that python-networkx has some integration with those > visualization libraries [1], which is not what I expected to be the > case, though the page also says: > > ~~~ > NetworkX provides basic functionality for visualizing graphs, but its > main goal is to enable graph analysis rather than perform graph > visualization. In the future, graph visualization functionality may be > removed from NetworkX or only available as an add-on package. > ~~~ > > so I guess until that integration is removed, it makes sense to keep it > as Recommends. My main problem remains, however, and it is that networkx > brings in a graphics stack when you try to install pbhoney on a headless > machine, like cluster compute nodes.
Given this is a Python package, we should not even have to argue about package relationships. Setuptools metadata provides install_requires and extras_require, the former mapping to Depends, the latter to Suggests. Period. Your typical Python project README would instruct users to install the Python package via `pip install`. If one runs `pip install networkx`, the graphics dependencies do not get pulled. That alone is enough to justify that these dependencies should not go to Recommends. FYI, I have a similar problem with sympy (#861741), which pulls an insane amount of packages via chained Recommends. Ghis
