Re: RFC: groff split (was Re: Packaging WM themes - question)

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
>On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 10:46:42PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
>> Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> wrote:
>> >As long as you don't introduce dependencies on xlibs I'll be happy.
>> 
>> groff-base will certainly not; I had, however, expected whatever package
>> contains gxditview to depend on xlibs ...
>
>Herbert wants a policy violation grandfathered.  In potato, groff depends
>on xlib6g today, it just lies about it.
>
>Upgraders with groff installed but not xlibs will get xlibs (and libxaw7)
>in the scenario under discussion but I don't think that's a big deal.  It
>is the cost of maintaining a lie for so many years about groff's shared
>library dependencies.
>
>You may want to write up a debconf note template explaining that groff can
>be removed (leaving the new groff-base) package if the extra functionality
>of the new groff package is not desired.

Having slept on it and argued with myself a bit, I think it's bad that
any and every potato system with at least the base system installed will
end up with the X libraries on a dist-upgrade (though I imagine you
disagree :)), so I prefer gxditview separate. What I will do is include
the X75, X100, etc. devices in that package (since they're useless
without gxditview anyway) and call it groff-x11; this makes it somewhat
more worthwhile.

However, the debconf note is a good idea; I'll use it to avoid
functionality being silently lost on an upgrade.

Thanks all,

-- 
Colin "make your mind up" Watson                 [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]