Re: Spliting packages between pkg and pkg-data

[Bill Allombert <allomber@math.u-bordeaux.fr>]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 04:36:41PM +0100, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> If package foo-data is useless when foo is not installed, foo-data
> should depend on package foo. This follows from policy manual 7.2: "The
> Depends field should be used if the depended-on package is required for
> the depending package to provide a significant amount of
> functionality.". Or am I missing something here?

Data packages does not provide functionnality per se. They provide
files.

Consider a data package foowm-icons providing icons for a window manager
foowm: if foowm is not installed, the data package is 'useless', but in
fact you can look up the icon more easily with an image browser than by
running the window manager launch random apps and iconify them to see
thet icon displayed. So foowm does not provide any more functionality to
foowm-icons, it is the other way round.

Hence the proposal of Enrico Zini to use Enhances: instead.

Anyway I would like to remember you that policy 7.2 say also
     This declares an absolute dependency.  A package will not be
     configured unless all of the packages listed in its `Depends'
     field have been correctly configured.

Which imply that package with circular dependencies cannot be installed
at all.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.