Re: Essentiality of Bash
Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de> writes:
> "Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org> wrote:
>> Please, try to be a bit more fair. Having people not need to specify
>> dependencies is really not the solution that "dumps extra error
>> proneness and extra thoughtweight" on the developers.
> Imagine an embedded system that doesn't have bash for some reason and
> a local admin wanting to install a package containing /bin/bash
> scripts. This can be done given the current situation, but leads to
> subsequent failure.
The problem that I have with this argument is that it seems to imply the
situation is improved for that embedded system if some random minority of
Debian packagers explicitly declare the dependency on bash, while most
continue not to do so. I don't see a lot of justification for that
implication. Unless a reasonable percentage of the archive has the
dependency expressed correctly, the embedded system is going to have to
deal with this in some other way. A small handful of developers adding
explicit depencencies is not going to be meaningful assistance.
Put another way, supporting removal of bash is something that we'd have to
do as a project. Right now, we've made a conscious decision to not
support that. A small handful of developers adding explicitly
dependencies creates some other (mostly minor) issues and seems very
unlikely to substantively change that situation.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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