kopete's xmms dependency
Hi,
I am trying to understand the reasoning behind Kopete's dependency on xmms. I
know the underlying reason is the functioality of some plugin (Now Listening)
that allows IM buddies to see what you're currently listening to.
I read the threat on debian-mentors that discussed this issue
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2003/debian-mentors-200302/msg00206.html)
It concludes with a reference to an apparantly well known discussion about
[debian] bug #119517. This bug dealt with a similar problem of the pcmcia-cs
package that contained a simple X utility. For this utility to work at all, X
libraries would have to be installed.
I also read the discussion on debian-ctte where this pcmcia-cs matter was
dealt with
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2002/debian-ctte-200204/msg00012.html)
It was my impression that the issue was settled in a way that ruled out the
possibility of having a package depend on a relatively unrelated package just
because of some rather small functionality that would be better served by
having its needed dependencies mentioned in Suggested or Recommended.
And indeed, the pcmcia-cs package does not depend on xlibs. xlibs is only
included among the Suggested packages.
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What then was the reason for having Kopete depend on xmms? Wouldn't it be
better to reconsider this and follow the example of pcmcia-cs?
If I weigh the pros and cons, it seems to me that the negatives of having this
dependency are greater than those of not having an out-of-the-box
functionality of a single plugin (that is disabled by deafult).
I am, predictably, only trying to begin this discussion because I don't use
xmms, but I do like to use Kopete (without the aforementioned plugin, of
course).
Robert
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