Hello!
I posted to debian-devel because I think it's a general question and I
cannot figure out the answer with the manuals. Sorry if I was wrong.
I'm in the process of debianize some CL software [1] and I've the same
problem as bug #328423: some extra features of the package needs other
packages to be installed, so I don't know if the package should use
Suggests or Recommends.
On Sun 02 Oct 2005 13:11 +0200, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 12:11:22PM +0200, Wolfram Quester wrote:
>
>> as long as your attention rests at inkscape, may I ask you a question
>> about Bug #328423?
>
>> Olleg asked to move the stuff in Recommends: to Suggests: and argues:
>
>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 10:49:16AM +0400, Olleg Samoylov wrote:
>> > >So I'm not totally sure what would be the best way to follow here.
>
>> > Let's see
>> > http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-binarydeps
<cut>
>
>> > As I undestand the definition all modules and plugins must be declared
>> > as suggests. Without it inscape give warning message "One or more
>> > extensions failed to load". This is not very bad, but for newbie debian
>> > user looked like something go wrong. But debian user expirienced enough
>> > to uncheck "unstall suggests by default" will be not confused by this
>> > warning. But I may mistake. May be better ask some of Debian Guru?
>
>> I think that he is right, but in the beginning I had it in Suggests and
>> got a bug report to move it to Recommends. So I think the solution would
>> be to put all this into Suggests and add a README.Debian explaining
>> which packages are needed for which effect. What do you think?
Wolfram was referring to bug #317767.
> I really have no strong opinion on the question; the best guides to
> Recommends vs. Suggests are the wording in policy, and user feedback. :) It
> sounds to me like these would be better as Suggests than Recommends, but I
> don't know the package, so I don't have much to base that judgement on...
The "The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ" [2] says:
* Package A recommends Package B, if the package maintainer judges
that most users would not want A without also having the
functionality provided by B.
* Package A suggests Package B if B contains files that are
related to (and usually enhance) the functionality of A.
So, I'd use Recommends in inkscape (and in the CL packages), but I'd
like to have a wider help ;-)
Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca
[1] http://common-lisp.net/pipermail/bese-devel/2005-October/001176.html
[2] http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.en.html#s-depends
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