Re: Should MUA only Recommend mail-transfer-agent?

[Gabor Nagy <linux42@freemail.hu>]

Steve Langasek wrote:
> 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.

For me package A should depend on package B if it cannot be used without
the other. Like A is linked against B, so starting A will get a library
not found error message.
Everything else, that is simply an usablity issue should be recommends.
Since I can start mutt without an MTA installed, and I can even use it
for some simple(?) tasks, I don't think it should _depend_ on an MTA.

G