Re: Conditional Recommends

[David Kalnischkies <kalnischkies@gmail.com>]

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 06:50, Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> wrote:
> I've noticed many cases where packages recommend a bunch of stuff that,
> while it might be very nice for some users, really isn't of general
> interest.

So, because package maintainers don't read and understand the policy
which defines clearly for what 'Recommends' should be used
(hint: §7.2 "in all but unusual installations" != "nice for some users")
we should give maintainers even more options they don't understand?



The idea of using it for l10n-packages hints already that conditions based
on packages are not enough, soon it will be 'tasks' or based on local
environment. I can already hear someone asking for
Package: libc6
Recommends: libc6-686 {arch::supports:cmov}
which soon evolves to a complete language in which you really need
all the funky stuff like & and | and ! together with hard/soft constraints…

So, in the end what we would need is a machine parseable reason why
a package is recommend/suggested by a maintainer so the machine
can evaluate if it should suggest this to the user.

And in that end, the user still has to decide what should be installed and
what should not, so maybe we should focus on making the massive amount
of information we already have easily available before we add even more…


Best regards

David Kalnischkies