Re: #38544: Gettext solution (Was: Re: gettext packages)
> > It's not such a stupid suggestion, perhaps. But what does one package
> > which might need to be broken have to do with another?
>
> I has to do a lot: If we split gettext because it contains things which
> are useful for different kind of people (users and developers), and we
> do this based on the size of the package, then we should do the same for
> every package having the same size to be consistent. However, we do not
> split packages for the sake of splitting. It has to be a real gain.
>
> Why don't you report "this package should be splitted because it is
> too large and contains things which are not normally useful" as a bug
> against libc6-dev?
Because libc6-dev is a development package anyway, and is named as
such. No desire to compile => no need for libc6-dev; desire to
compile => need for libc6-dev. Further, Joe User downloads some
package which he wants to use and it requires compilation. Just so
happens that the authors of the package have decided for one reason or
another to make the binary statically linked. ("Installation
instructions: type ./configure; make") How should Joe User understand
why only having libc6-headers or whatever it would be called and not
libc6-static makes his compilation fail? So I'm actually less
inclined to ask for libc6-dev to be split than I was yesterday. Of
course, if you don't want to do any compiling, you can just get rid of
the libc6-dev package. The only packages which depend upon or
recommend libc6-dev are development packages themselves, and
pine-diffs. (At least in slink, that is, haven't checked out potato.)
On the other hand, gettext is not the same. There is a very clear
distinction between the user's part (/usr/bin/gettext) and the
developer's part (/usr/share/gettext/* and its accompanying
documentation).
> > Anyway, I might pursue my intent to find a clean way to split the
> > gettext package when I have some time.
>
> Even if you find a "clean" way to split it, I think a good reason to
> split it is still needed. Just because you think it must be split
> does not make it a bug. It would be more productive to clearly state
> the reasons why gettext "must" to be split while libc6-dev has not
> before looking the way to split it.
gettext "must" be split: no, but why it would be an excellent idea to
do so: have done in multiple emails in this thread.
libc6-dev not: see above.
Julian
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Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://www.debian.org/~jdg
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