On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 01:25:43PM +0100, Simon Richter wrote: > > You are still assuming that the user is able to install software and > doesn't have to grovel to her admin in order to get libqt3-dev installed > only to find out that she also needs the -compat headers. That was my > point. Flip answer #1: don't use broken software. > It doesn't suit the needs of people who want to install a Qt based > theorem prover on the lab machines in the uni and have to run to their > admins twice asking for a package to be installed on the next nightly > maintenance run. Semi-flip, semi-useful answer #2: Download .deb, install .deb using --root into a user-available directory, and make liberal use of -I to point the compiler at the 'local' copy, until the admin has time to install a global one. In fact, this works even if the admin never installed libqt3-dev, either. The entire situation is less likely to occur if the package Recommends the libqt3-compat-headers, which I think is a reasonable option (and I believe was proposed by Ralf further up the thread). Compat headers *are* deprecated, and not having them show up on a build daemon is probbaly a very good thing at this point. Recommends means that something like, oh, 95% of admins will install them, since it usually takes some active effort to *not* do so using the UIs? Any admin that goes to that effort probably has a reason for it, and that is between them and their users. 'Normal' users of a home machine are unlikely to get bitten by this, using Recommends. Developers are expected to keep up with such events, especially if they're maintaining QT3-based packages. -- Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org>
Attachment:
pgpyrOJ_Lw0PD.pgp
Description: PGP signature