Re: [RFC] DEP-6: Meta-Package debian/control field
David Paleino writes:
> Rene Engelhard wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 05:00:35PM +0100, David Paleino wrote:
> >> However, seems like on IRC we reached kind of a consensus on the fact
> >> that metapackages should use Recommends instead of Depends. I plan to do
> >> a mass- bug filing on this issue sooner or later, just need some time to
> >> do it :)
> >
> > What sense does that have? apt-get install openoffice.org installing
> > nothing? (Assuming a system has a senseful configuration and has
> > the recommends-install thing removed? Ok, OOo is a bad example, let's get
> > a better one:
> >
> > mysql-server or postgresql. On (minimal as you can get) servers you don't
> > want to install recommends, and this would break those, too.
> > (Yes, they are metapackages)
>
> Go tell this to people on IRC ;)
>
> They've been saying that my "auto-recommends off, but I want working
> metapackages" configuration is insane! :P
There is a big difference between being insane and being on your own, really.
> That's why I wanted to propose a Meta-Depends (or whatever we call that),
> that must only be used by metapackages, and works like Recommends, but is
> not configurable.
Unfortunately, that Meta-Depends introduces new package relationship, while we
already have three of them (absolute, strong, weak). Next, if you are going to
register metapackages with the packaging system (which basically means yet
another dedicated field or a dedicated section resp., I'm not arguing which is
better) you should firstly propose a sensible and clear definition what a
metapackage is, so it is clear when maintainers are supposed to use that
metapackage field or section. That would eventually answer the question whether
or not so defined metapackages must be treated specially on autoremove & Co.
I'm sorry I can't come with a complete solution, which is not that easy, but
this is just my view how to start sorting out the mess.
--
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