On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 00:30:44 +0200 Michael Vogt <mvogt@acm.org> wrote: > > The current recommends situaton is bad, but as I see it we have two > options: > a) change policy and say recommends should really be suggests > b) fix apt and go through the transition pain c) mass bug filing without changing apt. (It's the right list for that, at least.) The hardest part of this is that the decision about just what goes into Recommends isn't something that can be easily tested by automated scripts, lintian etc. Forcing the situation by changing apt to expose the idiocies of the current Recommends list does seem to be a heavy-handed way to do it. However, I seem to be in danger of being labelled a "stick-in-the-mud" or "resistant" to change which is completely untrue. I just don't like this particular change. Lacking the time to do this some other way myself due to contributions elsewhere in Debian/Emdebian, it will just be one of those things where I disagree with a default. As far as Emdebian is concerned, yes, it is just a change in our cross-built apt package to make Emdebian into one of those unusual installations where Recommends does not apply. Hopefully, in time, I'll work out a collection of these patches where Emdebian needs to change a low-level Debian default and create a way to still carry these upstream within wrappers that are only enabled by an emdebian / cross build, possibly along the lines of how gcc works with DEB_CROSS. This is just one more for that list. > Letting the current situation drag on forever is not really a solution > IMHO. And we have time to fix the reommends chain and to fix the tools > to better distinguish between real depends and recommends (that is not > ideal currently). > > In summary I think that depends will not become another form of > depends and people will forget about them. Just the oposite, it will > be a benefit especially for the powerusers. Regular users will just > ignore them. Has that issue with gksu been filed as a bug report? I'm as guilty as anyone else about griping without always filing a bug report but I would like to see more bug reports that move Depends -> Recommends as well as making Recommends itself logically consistent. > I understand that a lot of people are not happy about a change like > this, but I think recommends-cleanup and improving our tools should > really make debian better and there is still time to work on the > remaining issues :) I agree with fixing Recommends, I just wish it didn't have to involve forcing people to get around to fixing it by changing apt. > I guess my initial mail should have included much > more details and examples to explain the rational better. It was the fait-accompli manner of the announcement that worried me most and I was on VAC during the previous discussions on this list. If it had maybe started with: After previous discussion on debian-devel <link>, we the APT team *want to* bring the current behaviour in experimental into unstable.... here are some of the reasons and possible problems ... we expect to make this change on <date> rather than (how it came across) We the APT team will force this change and this is simply notification that you've got 56 days to comply and by the way, here's how to hack all your systems to retain the current method. It would have reduced the feelings of panic and alarm at this end! :-) If the announcement also mentioned some existing problems with Recommends (with bug reports), it would have been *so* much easier. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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