kopete's xmms dependency

[Robert Kratky <kratky@rob.cz>]

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.

----------

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