On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 01:12:37PM +0200, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: > tl;dr - what do you think, is a "Depends: foo-contrib | foo" acceptable > for packages in main or should it be "Depends: foo | foo-contrib" > instead? I think the first form above ("foo-contrib | foo") is not acceptable. My argument is that we should make choice of non-free software an explicit action of Debian users, rather than an implicit/automated one. Most of our package manager frontends — including the default one — walk dependency formulae left to right, preferring the first alternative if it is satisfiable. That means that a user installing a package with a dependency like the first form above will install foo-contrib without necessarily knowing they are doing so. I understand it can be argued that users enabling contrib/non-free have decided to opt-in for non-free software. But I still don't think such a system-wide should be taken as a wildcard to install contrib/non-free packages without user consent. If there were a way to fix a system-wide dependency solving preference that would favor main packages by default, unless explicitly customized by the sysadm, the first form might be (more) acceptable. I don't think it is acceptable without it. Just my 0.02€, Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o . Maître de conférences ...... http://upsilon.cc/zack ...... . . o Debian Project Leader ....... @zack on identi.ca ....... o o o « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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