Re: stupid dependencies on update-inetd
On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 12:57:03AM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> I don't know exactly how it happened, but a large number of maintainers
> apparently ignored the discussions on this list and added to their
> packages a dependency on update-inetd.
> This is *TOTALLY WRONG* because the /usr/sbin/update-inetd interface is
> guaranteed to be provided by whatever implements the inet-superserver
> virtual package and not by the update-inetd package currently depended
> on by some inetd packages.
> Indeed, the update-inetd package does not depend on a daemon package nor
> it provides one itself.
> Some of these packages instead are only slightly less broken and depend
> both on inet-superserver and update-inetd, making impossible to install
> a future xinetd package providing its own /usr/sbin/update-inetd.
> For the same reason the dependency on netbase must be removed,
> especially now that it does not depend anymore on inet-superserver.
> (I know that in theory I should have waited for all packages to be fixed
> before removing the dependency, but realistically this would not have
> happened before lenny or lenny+1...)
The rationale for samba depending on update-inetd was that samba does *not*
depend on the availability of an inet superserver; it only depends on the
availability of the update-inetd interface, in order for its maintainer
scripts to run correctly.
The relationship with inet-superserver is therefore of a 'suggests' nature,
but the relationship with the update-inetd interface is a hard dependency.
I understand that the swat package doesn't have this excuse, since it does
depend on inet-superserver also. That, I can only attribute to my own poor
memory for the previous discussion and -- as previously mentioned -- the
lack of prominent documentation.
But I would still like input on the use of this dependency for samba; I
rather expect we would get complaints if samba depended on inet-superserver
when it doesn't use it in the default configuration.
Thanks,
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
Reply to: