Re: Essentiality of Bash

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org> writes:

>> Beyond making dash the default /bin/sh, which has already happened, is it 
>> (still) a long-time goal to make bash not Essential, or did I dream that? 
>> Because if it is, getting there means adding a lot of "Depends: bash" first, 
>> and so Lintian should probably add an exception to the (build-)depends-on-
>> essential-package-without-using-version check.
>
> I dont see Debian losing bash as essential in the next, well, decade.
> I also see no reason why Debian should ever do such a thing, too many
> people rely on it. (Its different for some subprojects, like embedded
> foo, but thats a different story).

I think the point of having bash as explicit dependency in Debian would
be so that subprojects, like embedded foo, can drop bash without tons of
hidden bash scripts exploding. That would mean a single debian/control
file could be used instead of having one for debian and one for
debian-clones-without-essential-bash.

I think for that goal it would be good for lintian to add an exception
to the (build-)depends-on-essential-package-without-using-version check.
That does not mean that bash should stop being essential in Debian any
time soon.

MfG
        Goswin