On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:52:46 +0200 Reinhard Tartler <siretart@debian.org> wrote: > > Recommends does NOT apply to everyone - that is Policy. > > : Recommends > : > : This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency. > : The Recommends field should list packages that would be found > : together with this one in all but unusual installations. The problem is that with packages like gnome-devel and gnome-core-devel (re: anjuta) >50% will require SOME of the Recommended packages. As a long term anjuta user, I would estimate that <5% of all users need ALL Recommended packages. What is the anjuta / gnome-devel maintainer meant to do in this situation? S/He isn't psychic, there is no way to know which Recommends are going to be a waste of space. That is up to the user, so let the user decide - on a per-package basis. Recommends: is easy with small packages, it becomes more difficult when each user does different things with the one package. Are we supposed to have anjuta-gtk, anjuta-console, anjuta-glib, anjuta-glade, anjuta-gnome, anjuta-custom . . . . each with their own Recommends: ? > > What apt is now doing is undermining Policy by removing that CHOICE to > > not use any recommended packages. > > No. The apt team intends to finally implement what is mandated by Debian > Policy for years. Policy does not mandate that ALL Recommends: are to be installed. The new default makes Recommends: disappear completely - there would be no difference between Depends: and Recommends: just like there is a perception of no real difference between Recommends: and Suggests: at the moment. That makes things HARDER for people like me who do not want Recommends: because maintainers will lose any reason to put things in Recommends: and will end up putting everything in Depends: just as many current Recommends: are actually just Suggests: The blanket default that does not take the real meaning of Policy. Proponents of the change need to rationalise just how much wasted disc space is involved in accepting the installation of all Recommends: for all packages at all times for all but the most pig-headed users. (i.e. me). Has anyone even considered the extra bandwidth / code churn / mirror requirements of adding hundreds of unwanted packages to every new installation? A simple boolean default cannot enforce actual Policy. Set the default to Recommends:On and Recommends =~ Depends. Set the default to Recommends:Off and Recommends =~ Suggests (which is where we are now). Personally, I think we are better off as-is. Overlap between Recommends: and Suggests: is FAR LESS of a problem than blurring the lines between Recommends: and Depends: as WILL happen when people get used to the new default and assume that everyone has all the Recommends: anyway. I fear that at the end of this whole sorry mess, Recommends will still be broken, just broken in the opposite way to how it is broken now. A boolean default cannot solve the problem. Right problem. Wrong solution. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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