Re: Depends/Recommends from libraries
* Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [170309 13:19]:
> I think this would be a great way of introducing spurious bugs in our
> distribution from people who don't happen to read the README file and miss
> dependencies they actually need...
I think you are missing Ian's meaning. Currently foo Depends libbar,
and libbar Depends bar-daemon. If libbar were dynamically loaded, the
maintainer of foo would have used either a Recommends or Suggests for
libbar, but must instead use Depends because it is statically loaded.
If libbar-dev documents that it requires bar-daemon (and under what
circumstances, if appropriate), but libbar does not declare the Depends,
then it becomes the Debian maintainer of foo who decides to add an
appropriate Depends, Recommends, or Suggests for bar-daemon, in addition
to the Depends (that should be, but can't be, a Recommends or Suggests)
on libbar. This is not pushed to the user at all, except in the normal
way that a user currently chooses to install Recommends or Suggests in
other circumstances.
Every Debian maintainer whose package links libbar would then be
required to read the documentation of libbar-dev, and act on that to add
a dependency that libbar would have used. I would certainly expect a
Debian maintainer to read said documentation (irregardless of Ian's
proposal). This has nothing to do with an end user reading a README
file to get the dependencies right (at least not any differently than
the current situation for other non-lib Recommends or Suggests).
I have not decided which side of the fence I am on, but I am certainly
empathetic to Ian's, Adam's, and others' desire to improve the
situation, as I have been bitten by this myself on more than one
occasion. This is a situation where the maintainer of foo has no choice
but to use Depends, even if the library "can perhaps enhance [foo's]
usefulness, but installing [foo] without [libbar] is perfectly
reasonable." You end up with a daemon that you don't want because
libbar Depends bar-daemon is appropriate, even if you, the end user, are
never going to use foo in a way that uses the libbar functionality.
If more upstreams were careful to use dynamic loading in these
situations, it would be less of a problem. In a perfect world, the
solution would be for foo's maintainer to convince upstream to switch to
dynamic loading. I'm not convinced that Ian's proposal is the right
approach, but I definitely agree that it is an attempt to solve a real
problem, and I believe it has more merit than you give it.
...Marvin
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