Re: Tasks policy

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@mit.edu>]

>>>>> "Anthony" == Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:


    Anthony> On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 07:32:10PM -0400, Sam Hartman
    Anthony> wrote:
    >> So, I think that support in tools besides tasksel is critical
    >> to this policy proposal being useful.  I don't like the idea of
    >> having frontend-specific fields being mandated by policy and
    >> don'tt see a need for tasksel to be a distinguished frontend.
    >> I understand why apt-get might not want to support or
    >> reverse-recommends, but I think that the actual frontends
    >> should support this.

    Anthony> Remember: the point of tasks is to make the initial
    Anthony> install simpler, so that people can get started on Debian
    Anthony> without having to wade through dselect.

Yes, that was the original point of tasks.  However, tasks are also
used today by people who want to get a set of software installed after
the initial install.  I know many Debian users who expect to be able
to do apt-get install task-blah long after the initial install. While
I was not involved as a developer at the time this discussion happened
the last time, I saw a major advantage of tasks over profiles that I
could install new tasks as I found I needed them rather than having to
reinstall a system and select a new profile.

We will never fully be able to support the users who have grown used
to being able to apt-get install tasks; you have convinced me of that.
However policy's primary purpose seems to be to document existing
practice and I don't think that we are doing that very well by
dropping support for the existing practice of usefully adding tasks
after the initial install.

Yet I understand we have finite time.  Would it be reasonable to get
tasksel install task-name added as a command line invocation for
people to use in scripts and to have the policy text say that
frontends that handle recommends should handle tasks?  I'm not
particularly concerned about the specifics of the text, but I believe
we must allow people an option to continue to use tasks in interactive
scripts and we should encourage people to support it appropriately.

--Sam