Debian-Junior with cdd-dev (Was: Desktop-profiles and CDD)

[Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>]

On Wed, 4 Jun 2008, Ben Armstrong wrote (on Debian Junior list):

> > BTW, the problem
> > of removal will not happen when using cdd-dev because cdd-dev checks
> > whether dependencies exist before building the final control file.
> > So the resulting meta packages can be validly installed on package
> > building time.
>
> Nice.

I just detected one more issue to discuss before I start turning the single meta
packages of Debian Junior into build all from one source using cdd-dev:  The
Debian Edu people convinced me that strong "Depends" is not a good idea for meta
packages because it forces you to deinstall the meta package if you want to get
rid of a single dependency.  There were other issues that let them give
preference of "Recommends" instead of "Depends" which were previosely discussed.
In consequence Petter Reinholdtsen wrote a script that turns every occurence
of "Depends" in a tasks file into "Recommends".  Later I took over this
script for the general cdd-dev (by factorising it to build more than only
Debian Edu).  I did not widthdraw the decision to change the Depends in
Recommends because it seemed reasonable.

Reading your junior-arcade/README.Debian which says:

  This package is a metapackage; it depends on several other packages to make
  them be installed when it is installed. If you want to remove one of those
  packages, you have to remove this package as well. The other packages won't be
  touched.

I wonder if you are happy with this decision.  IMHO there are two
options:

  1. You are fine with turning Depends into Recommends
     --> Results in a quick and flawless port from single packages
         to cdd-dev
  2. You insist on the former behaviour and stick to strong Depends
     --> Would need to touch debian-edu and debian-med source to
         verify that there are no explicite Depends any more and
         turn them into Recommends manually
     --> Change cdd-dev to accept Depends as they are.

I just want to discuss this here, because you might have reasons to
stick to the Depends which is really fine.  In principle we just
waste a feature in cdd-dev to say I *really* want a depends from this
package - there might be strong reasons even if Recommends is normally
fine since even apt-get considers Recommends as default installation
candidates.  I'm also willing to do the needed changes - but currently
it is somehow bad timing.  We are short before a freeze and chances
are good that we miss something that might have a stronger influence
than we expect.

So my plan for a future rewrite (which might be needed anyway because
we have to cope with the "differnet packages on different archs"
problem) is to enable strong Depends somehow (perhaps via command
line option or even by default and editors of tasks files will be
asked to explicitely express what they really mean.

In short: If you want Debian Junior packages builded with cdd-dev
in Lenny you have to live with the Depends -> Recommends feature.
If you can't live with this, please be patient until Lenny+1.

Kind regards

        Andreas.

--
http://fam-tille.de