:: Re: [Dng] Use/misuse of depends
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Author: karl
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [Dng] Use/misuse of depends
Katola2:
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:59:55PM +0700, Ста Деюс wrote:
> > Доброго времени суток, KatolaZ.
> >
> > Спасибо за ответ, Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:52:39 +0000, вы писали:
> > > Well, unfortunately there is currently no clear-cut about
> > > Recommends. In most of the cases a package will work fine 99.99% of
> > > the times even if you don't have the Recommends installed (as in the
> > > case of the gdbserver recommended by gdb), in some of the cases a
> > > Recommend is simply unnecessary (like exim4 recommended by mutt) but
> > > in many other cases Recommends include "standard" package
> > > associations, which would make your package loose some
> > > important/typical functionalities if not installed (like in the case
> > > of ghostscript recommended by gimp)...
> > Then may the recommendations should be better separeted/termed. -- So
> > that in primer case of your example, it should stand as 'recommends'
> > while the last one -- 'depends'.
> Yes, but it has never been like that, and never will be. The reason is
> that the choice of what is necessary, recommended or just ancillary
> for a package to run is ultimately left to the package
> maintainer. This is not totally wrong, but allows the introduction of
> dependencies which some other user/maintainer might think should not
> be there by default.


I have an example:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=618806

The maintainer introduced a dependance just because he want the init
script to be run after udev, and he was ignorant to case when no udev
is installed.

Applying:

$ diff control*
20c20
< lsb-base (>= 3.0-9), linux-sound-base (>= 1.0.15-1)
---
> lsb-base (>= 3.0-9), linux-sound-base (>= 1.0.15-1), udev

$ diff init*
7c7
< # Required-Start:    $remote_fs
---

> # Required-Start:    $remote_fs udev


And rebuilding the package, solved my direct needs.

As I see it, that was an unnessesary dependancy.

BTW it was intruduced by how the init-system was build.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

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