Dependency upon a mp3-decoder (Bug#100843)

[tony mancill <tony@mancill.com>]

One of my packages, ripperx, currently depends upon splay.  The bug is
asking why depend upon one particular mp3-decoder when there are several
to choose from.  (In other words, "don't install an mp3player on my box if
I already have one.")  I agree that the choice of splay is arbitrary, as
would be mpg321 or any other mp3player available in main, and I can set up
ripperx to use any of these.

But it seems that to be able use just any mp3player the user has
installed, I'll either have to require the user to set MP3PLAYER in their
environment, or we'll need to set up alternatives so that
/usr/bin/mp3-decoder is a symlink to whatever player the user has
installed.  And in either case, it seems that packages that depend on the
virtual package mp3-decoder will have to worry about a common set of
command line arguments.

Personally, I don't think that having to load splay is a big deal; if you
on a system that can rip and burn CDs, you've got a beefy enough system
that a package as small as splay is just a drop in the ocean.  But I'd
also like to try to do the right thing for the users and Debian.  
(Perhaps setting up alternatives for mp3-decoder?)

Thanks in advance for feedback.
tmancill@debian.org

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