Re: Reasons for recommends and suggests
On Fri, 18 May 2007, Felipe Sateler wrote:
> Don Armstrong wrote:
> > For example, in the case you're talking about, you'd have to explain
> > that ucf would like to be able to use debconf-loadtemplate from
> > debconf-utils utils when it's running as root just in case its
> > templates have become corrupted. Now, you and I may know what
> > debconf-loadtemplate does, what a template is, and why ucf would be
> > worried about corruption of its template database, but I can't imagine
> > making this intelligible to even an intermediate Debian user in less
> > than 5 lines. Hell, I took 3 lines here to say something about it that
> > I only understand because I read /usr/bin/ucf.
>
> But then you could just say: "Useful in case template databases get
> corrupted". There is no need to go and explain details.
If you're not going to explain what it actually does, why bother
writing it at all? You could just as easily assume that the package
maintainer knows what they're talking about when they mark a package
as Recommends: and assume that it should be actually installed in the
default case.
The information above isn't enough to make a rational decision as to
whether you really need debconf-utils when you've got ucf installed or
not.
Don Armstrong
--
Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the
rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct
these defects".
-- Mark Twain _A Horse's Tail_
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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