Re: dpkg and dependencies - manual update

["Susan G. Kleinmann" <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>]

Ian Jackson wrote:
> Thanks, Guy, for clarifying that issue.  I've added the following to
> the programmers' manual:
> > When selecting which level of dependency to use you should consider
> > how important the depended-on package is to the functionality of the
> > one declaring the dependency.

Dale Scheetz wrote:
>For me, this is still inadequate. Subjective phrases like "components
>of varying degrees of importance" and "required by the more important
>components" do not lead all readers to the same conclusions.

Actually, it was Raul Miller who clarified the issue for me, when he wrote:
>Package dependencies are a rather crude mechanism, only useful for
>preventing the most blatant configuration mistakes.


I had previously been under the impression that the Debian packaging 
mechanism was meant to be completely self-contained.  No qualitative
evaluations, no fuzziness.

I presume that Raul's description accurately portrays the packaging system 
as having a more limited set of goals.  In that case, while the system may be 
viewed as a vast improvement over other packaging systems which exist
at present (e.g., anything Microsoft offers), it nonetheless has room 
for improvement.  Whether that improvement will happen as part of this 
project or another remains, of course, to be seen.

Susan Kleinmann