On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 04:30:54PM +0200, Eduard Bloch wrote: > #include <hallo.h> > * Steve Langasek [Wed, Aug 06 2003, 07:37:16AM]: > > On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 10:52:37AM +0200, Eduard Bloch wrote: > > > #include <hallo.h> > > > * Colin Watson [Wed, Aug 06 2003, 08:36:25AM]: > > > > > > > Why not appease both? Let mutt depend on > > > > > mail-transport-agent | no-user-mta > > > > > > > > > > and tell such MTA hating users to create a fake "no-user-mta" package > > > > > with equivs. > > > > > > There's no point; it's just as easy to create a fake package that > > > > provides mail-transport-agent with equivs. Or they could install > > > > something tiny like nullmailer or ssmtp and leave it at that. > > > This OTOH may be dangerous, another packages that really rely on a > > > working /usr/sbin/sendmail must be able to depend on > > > mail-transport-agent and get one. > > Of course it's dangerous; overriding dependencies with the use of equivs > > is always a little sketchy. But if you're this concerned about not > > having an MTA installed on your system (there are many choices in > > Debian, some of them quite lightweight), you must have a reason, right? > a) It is not for me > b) I did not tell to override _real_ dependencies. It is a virtuall > package with only one purpose and to be installed by users with > special wishes. > c) Having an MTA for other packages or not is not the point of the > discussion. It is allowing _few_ users to work around a dependency > which makes sence for everybody else, but is not really useful for > _those_ few users in their special environment. > PS: a hot day or what? People feel a need to add sth. to the thread > without understanding the issue. You tell me. Why is it so important to *prevent* the installation of an MTA on such a machine when installing mutt? 99% of our users are going to want to send outgoing mail from their mailreader. A package that contains multiple binaries must depend on every library those binaries link against, even if a particular library is only needed by one seldom-used application to provide functionality that a small fraction of users would consider useful. If that's a dependency, why would an MTA not be a dependency? At the packaging level, the two situations are analogous: in both cases, the packages are usable for /some/ activities without the dependency in question. Why is "I don't /really/ want my MUA to be able to send mail" a more sensible position than "I don't /really/ want atd to notify me about job status"? -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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