Re: Essential [Re: Switching /bin/sh to dash (part two)]
"Giacomo A. Catenazzi" <cate@debian.org> writes:
> Russ Allbery wrote:
>> libc is essential from a Policy perspective. It's just not marked that
>> way in the packaging system in case the SONAME changes, but it's
>> essential in the same way that awk is. Note that dependencies on awk
>> are not required (and indeed are a Lintian warning).
> No! ;-) Unfortunately "essential" has two meanings:
> - packages which are always required on every Debian system.
> - note: there is also the priority "Required"
Which is not the same thing.
> - note: mawk has priority required, it is not essential,
> but an essential package (base-files) predepends on it.
awk is essential. Specific awk implementations are not, but the interface
is essential. This is something that we've discussed many times over the
years and I'm absolutely certain that statement is correct.
> - package who should not be written in the dependency list (but
> on versioned dependencies).
awk should not be written into the dependency list, because it is
essential.
> I want to solve this question:
> "What packages really depends on bash?"
>
> Note: nine packages depends on mawk,
If they need mawk in particular, they need to depend on it, but if they
just need awk, they should not have a dependency.
> so if we replace mawk with gawk (a trully virtual example) we know where
> to test the changes (because it not essential by the second rule).
Not if you need to check all the packages that depend on awk.
> So for my point of view [weight on second interpretation], mawk, glibc are
> not really "essential" package.
> But I see your confusion, so I propose a change in policy:
> - essential will have only the first meaning
> - policy must explicitly enumerate the packages which don't require
> explicit dependencies.
> [for obvious reason these deb should be in the subset of essential or
> essential-like packages]
I think the best way to resolve the confusion is for you to bring your
internal interpretation of essential in line with the definition the rest
of the project uses. :)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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